


Flashing Lights

by laykay



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Background Nathan/Victoria, F/F, Gen, Max works for Mark Jefferson, No powers/supernatural stuff, Strangers to Lovers, codependent amberprice, he's not evil here he's just a raging asshole, lots of text messages, past amberprice, pricefield slowburn, rating changed for smut reasons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-02-07 21:09:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 31,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12849579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laykay/pseuds/laykay
Summary: Max is working as a photography assistant in LA, when she gets tasked with a photoshoot with Hollywood's newest it girl, Rachel Amber, she finds herself attracted to Rachel's best friend/assistant, Chloe.Tumblr: flashing-lights-official





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started daydreaming at work and before I knew it I had this first chapter written in my head. I don't even know where it came from but it happened and now it exists.

Max stood near the wall in a brightly lit studio, close to her boss, Mark Jefferson, but far enough away that she was out of his way.  His rules, that she should only be within reaching distance when he called her.  “I don’t need some intern tripping on wires and knocking lights over,” he’d told her when she first started working with him and stood closer to his side.  There was no arguing that she wasn't his intern, at least she got paid to stand in the corner.

Her job mostly consisted of changing lenses and light filters, having a stock of memory cards on her, and getting him coffee.  The man loved his coffee.  Quad venti iced skinny caramel macchiato with whip, upside down, extra drizzle, light ice.  She had no idea what any of it meant, just that it made the coffee baristas hate her.

She was careful not to get in his way, especially during the photoshoot they were working on.  He made it clear that this shoot would make or break his career, which would then make or break the career Max had yet to really start.

A front page spread for one of those supermarket gossip “lifestyle” magazines, with Rachel Amber.

Hollywood’s new it girl and America’s sweetheart, the “girl next door with a bad streak” as one interview described her. 

Rachel Amber was, as always, completely flawless but Max wasn’t watching her.  Instead she was looking at a blue-haired girl, standing against the opposite wall, the silky robe that covered the bikini Rachel currently wore draped over her crossed arms.  She had one foot propped against the cinderblock wall, leaning back against it casually, almost looking bored.

“Max!  Max!”  Jefferson yelled at her, she jumped making the girl with blue hair chuckle.  “Today, please.”

Max blinked, not realizing he was talking to her.  “Um, what?”

Jefferson rolled his eyes at her then looked at the actress.  “Why don’t you take five, Rachel?  Apparently, my assistant would like to get to know your assistant a bit better.”

Rachel’s eyes shifted from Max to her assistant, who was walking over to her with the robe, shaking her head as she put it around Rachel’s shoulders.

Jefferson popped the memory card out of his camera and was holding it towards Max.  She fished another one out of her bag and handed it to him, placing the used one into a special compartment.  “Next time I tell you something, you better do it.  Do not embarrass me in front of Rachel Amber.”

“Sorry.  Just tired, I guess.”

He sighed dramatically, putting the new card into his camera.  “Then go get some coffee and get your shit together.”

Max walked slowly away from her boss, towards the craft services table, where she noticed Rachel Amber’s assistant had grabbed a bottle of water and was pouring coffee into a Styrofoam cup.

She looked up as Max hovered near the table.  “What do you take in it?”

Max blinked.  “What?”

“Your coffee.  How to you take it?”

“Oh.  Plain black’s fine.”

“Girl after my own heart.”  She handed Max the cup then got herself another one.  “I’m Chloe.”

“Max.”

“I know.  I heard when your boss reamed you out,” Chloe said with a laugh.  “How do you deal with that?”

Max shrugged.  “Paying my dues.  You know how it is.  So what are you in for? Acting?”

“Oh, hell no.”

“Writing?  Directing?  You don’t look like a model.”

Chloe raised her eyebrows.  “Well, thanks.”

“I didn’t mean… not that you can’t be a model.  I mean… you’re… you’re… you could totally be a model just that you… you look more like… like arty, behind the scenes kind of thing.”

Chloe laughed as Max stuttered, trying to backtrack.  “I’m just my best friend’s assistant.  No ladder I'm trying to climb, she made it big and I guess I'm trying to keep her grounded.”

Max looked at Rachel, who had changed into an evening gown and was having a large fan blow her hair back.  “How’s that going for you?”

Chloe followed Max’s eyes and laughed when hair blew into Rachel’s face, sticking to her lip gloss.  “For now, pretty good.  But she did just get voted Choice Hottie at the Teen Choice Awards, that made her head inflate a little."

“Max!” Jefferson yelled.  “Flirt later, please. I need you.” 

Rachel looked over to them, her eyes narrowing at Chloe as she walked to her, handing her her water.  Max watched Chloe shake her head, Rachel’s eyes shot to Max and Chloe rolled her eyes before returning to her spot near the wall.

Chloe glanced at Max once more, laughing out loud when Max purposefully avoided looking at her.


	2. Chapter 2

Max looked at her phone as she waited for her coffee at her favorite street cart, only looking up when she heard a voice talking near her.

“Rachel has the script, she’s looking it over.”

Max blinked as Chloe spoke through the Bluetooth in her ear, putting cash on the counter of the cart then receiving her order without saying anything to the barista.

“Not right this second but she will.  Listen, I’ll make sure she reads it tonight, alright?  Good.”  She let out an annoyed sigh as she clicked her phone to hang up then turned to walk down the street.

Max quickly grabbed her coffee and, without thinking, followed Chloe despite living in the opposite direction.  “Chloe,” she called before she could stop herself.

Chloe turned around and stared at Max, as if she was trying to figure out where she knew her from.  Max considered turning around and running back to her apartment, deciding that locking herself in for the rest of her life probably wouldn’t be an overreaction.

Chloe finally spoke.  “Max, right?”  She smiled.

She had a great smile.  Max had to remind herself that taking out her camera and taking a picture of Chloe would be awkward. 

 _Don’t be weird,_ she said to herself. _Say something._

Nothing came, Chloe raised her eyebrows expectantly.

_She’s busy, clearly.  Say something.  Say anything._

“Hi.  I just wanted to… hey.”

_Real smooth.  Idiot._

Chloe let out a confused chuckle.  “Hey.”  She paused, waiting for Max to speak.  When she didn’t, she motioned to the coffee Max held.  “Your boss doesn’t seem like a coffee cart kinda dude.”

“Oh, yeah.  No.  Starbucks and only Starbucks.  This is me… mine… my coffee.  I’m off today, so no stupid coffee runs.”

“Nice.”  Chloe nodded her head.  “If you’re off, how about you come with me?  I have some stuff I need to do for Rachel, but we can hang out after.”

Just what Max wanted to do on her day off, follow around someone else’s assistant.  But she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Chloe since they wrapped the photoshoot.  She finally nodded and followed Chloe to the black Porsche SUV parked off to the side of the street.

As Max climbed into the passenger seat of the car, holding tightly onto her coffee as she thought about the large coffee stain on the seat of her Honda.  Chloe didn’t seem to have the same worries about the leather interior as Max did, balancing the coffee cup and pastry bag on the center console.  Max watched the cup shake as Chloe started driving.

Max reached out to grip the cup, holding it steady, Chloe glanced over and laughed. “Don’t even worry about it.  I’ve spilled more shit in this car.”

“And Rachel still lets you drive it?”

“Lets me?” Chloe laughed again.  “This is mine.”

“Wowser,” Max muttered.  “She must pay you really well.”

“It was actually a gift.  My truck broke down, I’m still working on getting it running again but she gave me this after she made her first million.  It’s a little bit flashy for my taste but this is LA.  You know, when in Rome…”

“Buy a Porsche,” Max finished.

“Exactly.  So please, spill all the coffee you want.  I promise, that’s not the worse thing that’s happened in this car.”

Max wanted to ask Chloe what she meant but the car was stopped, and Chloe was opening her door.  Telling Max she’d be right back, she shut the door and went into building they were parked in front of.  Max looked into the backseat, searching for any mysterious stains.

“Looking for something?”

Max jumped, attempting to turn so quickly she smacked her face against the window frame while Chloe hung dry cleaning on the hook over backseat. 

“Shit! Are you okay?” Chloe jumped into the car, putting one hand on the back of Max’s head.

“I’m good.  I’m good.  Hoping to get sucked into the abyss but, yeah, I’m good.” Turning to face the front, she sunk down her seat.

Chloe started driving again until a huge, white house came into view, with floor to ceiling picture windows on every wall.  Chloe pulled into what looked more like a parking lot than a driveway, parking next to another, bigger SUV, windows tinted so dark no one could see inside, even if they were pressed right against it.  On the other side of Chloe’s car, were three sports cars.  Another Porsche, a blue convertible, a yellow Lamborghini, and a red classic Mustang.

“Who lives here?” Max asked.

“Take a guess.”  Chloe got out of the car, grabbing the dry cleaning on her way out.  “Wanna see how the other half lives?”

Max hesitated. “Are you sure this is cool?  She won’t be mad?”

Chloe shook her head like it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.  “Don’t worry, she’s not home.  She’s at the gym.”

She followed Chloe into the house, stopping in the pristine white living room.  Chloe dropped the dry cleaning carelessly into an armchair, shuffling through a stack of scripts on the coffee table, all with different colored sticky notes on them.  She pulled the pink sticky note off one script and put it onto one with a green note on it, slapping the green note onto the first script.

Max looked around and if she wasn’t sure this was Rachel Amber’s house, she could have only assumed it was the house of someone with an unhealthy obsession with Rachel Amber.  Blown up, framed magazine covers and movie posters lined the white walls.

Max looked at a series of posters, the trilogy she completed two years earlier, based on a young adult novel series, that launched her into household name status.  In the first, she was in the background of the poster, behind her male costar and to the left.  In the second one, she was right next to him, both looking intensely into the camera, and in the final poster she was by herself, looking beat up and dirty, wearing tight jeans and a tank top ripped to expose her toned stomach.

Even the first movie she starred in was on the wall, a SyFy TV movie about a genetically modified flying crocodile.  The movie was horrible, not even in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way, just bad.  It did get something of a cult following after the release of her next movie, a sappy love story, the poster was simply her with her arms around her equally beautiful costar.  It was a Valentine’s Day blockbuster.

There were six movie posters in total and 12 magazine covers, not counting the one they’d just shot, that cover was still in production.  “Does seeing her head so big ever freak you out?” Max asked, looking at a cover of Cosmo.

Chloe looked away from the scripts she’d been sorting, looking at the magazine cover Max stood in front of.  “No, that’s it’s actual size.”

“What happened to you being around to keep her grounded?”

“Rachel’s always had a big head.  All actors do, I guess, on some level.”

Max nodded, turning back to the posters.

“What the hell, man?”

Max jumped when Chloe yelled behind her, she spun to look at her and saw her holding her phone to her ear.  “How many times are they gonna remake this movie, Frank?  I don’t know, don’t you think people might be getting sick of seeing the exact same movie eight times?”  She sighed.  “That’s not my job, it’s your job, you’re her goddamn agent.  Yeah, what about it?  She hasn’t read it yet.  Do you realize she’s got eight scripts sitting here?”  She paused, leaning back on the couch.  “How much?” Chloe laughed.  “Okay, yeah, she’ll do it.  I’ll make sure she does it.”

She hung up the phone and changed sticky notes again while Max wandered towards the back of the living room, out a sliding glass door.  She hadn’t realized how close they were to the beach, or that Rachel’s house was perched atop a rocky bluff with a wide view of the ocean, uninterrupted by buildings or noise or any of the usual Los Angeles distractions.

“Nice view, huh?” Chloe said as she walked onto the balcony to stand next to Max, leaning forward against the fiberglass half wall that served as a railing.

“It’s amazing.  How do you guys get any work done?”

“Well, not a lot of movies film in the house.  That helps.”  She pulled a cigarette out of her pocket, putting it between her teeth but not lighting it.  “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked, holding up her lighter.

Max shook her head, looking back out towards the ocean, watching as the waves crashed against the surface.

“I guess your place doesn’t have an ocean view?” Chloe asked with a chuckle as she lit her cigarette.

“More like a brick wall.”  She pulled her old Polaroid instant camera out of her bag, taking a picture of the surf.

Chloe looked at her as she shook out the picture.  “I haven’t seen one of those in forever.  My dad used to have one just like it.”

“Yeah, most people got rid of theirs when cameras on phones got better, I guess.  I like having the picture, something physical, I can hold in my hands and watch it develop right in front of me.”  She looked down at the picture as the colors became more vibrant. “It’s too bad he got rid his, some of them are actually worth a lot of money now.”

Chloe didn’t respond, taking a long draw from her cigarette then exhaling through her nose.

Sensing she’d struck a nerve, Max decided to change the subject instead of pushing the matter further.  “So do you live close by?”

“You could say that,” Chloe muttered.  “I don’t have an ocean view though, that’s Rachel’s room.  My room’s over the driveway.”

“You live here?”

Chloe shrugged.  “Rachel likes to have me close.”

“Chloe!”

She cleared her throat.  “And there she is.”  She walked back into the house, Rachel stood in the living room wearing a tank top and tiny running shorts.  “You’re early.”

Rachel looked at Max.  “You have a guest.  I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, sarcasm clear in her voice.

“You remember Max, the photographer for US Weekly,” Chloe told her.

“The assistant,” Rachel said, not taking her eyes off Max. “Nice to see you again.” Her head turned to Chloe, a Stepford-esque smile on her face.  “Can I speak to you in private, please?”

Chloe followed Rachel into the next room, Rachel closed the large double doors before turning to Chloe.

“Are we inviting paparazzi into the house now?” she asked.

“You’re the one who left her alone in the living room," Chloe pointed out, making Rachel let out an annoyed huff.  "Besides, she’s not paparazzi, she’s just a photographer.  We ran into each other at the coffee cart.”

“Tomato-tomahto.  That’s adorable, really, it is.  What, do you have a crush on her or something?”

Chloe rolled her eyes.  “I’m allowed to be friends with other people, Rachel.”

“Or more than friends?”

“I barely know her.”

“But you want to.”  Rachel smiled.  “Well, if she’s going to be around, we should make her feel welcome.”  Rachel took off her shirt, Chloe rubbed her forehead.

“Jesus Christ, Rachel, can you not walk around naked while we have company?”

“What, scared she’ll change her mind and like me better?”  She laughed as she edged her finger under her sports bra. “Fine, you never let me have any fun.  It’s not like everyone hasn’t already seen me naked anyway.  She did see Lost River, didn’t she?”

Chloe rolled her eyes, opening the door back to the living room.  Max was gone, she looked onto the balcony to see if she had gone back out there but it was empty.  Frowning, she looked out the front window and saw Max getting into the backseat of a car before it drove away.

Rachel stood next to Chloe, watching the car pull away from the property.  “Was it something I said?”


	3. Chapter 3

Rachel Amber followed 657 people on Instagram.  Max sighed as she scrolled through her follower page, not sure what exactly she was looking for, especially after realizing she didn’t know Chloe’s last name.  She went back to Rachel’s profile, most were pictures of her behind the scenes of a movie, a couple of her in a makeup chair while the makeup artist applied fake wounds to her face. There were a few videos of her with Zac Efron, following him around the set of the movie they’d starred in together while she sang High School Musical songs.

Max finally saw a picture of Chloe, sleeping in a director’s chair with the caption “16-hour days #goodtimes @priceaintright”.  Max clicked on the link to Chloe’s account, looking at the description: “Chloe Price.  Or as I’m more commonly known, Assistant to Ms. Amber.”

The first picture was the same as the one of her sleeping from Rachel’s account, Max quickly realized most of the pictures were from Rachel’s account, promoting Rachel’s movies. The few Chloe was in, she was barely smiling, if she was even looking at the camera.

There was a picture that made Max pause, a block of text “ _You painted my entire world.  But I don't have the turpentine to clean what you have soiled…”_ clicking on it, she saw that it was almost five years old.  

“Holy shit, what are you doing?” she whispered to herself.  Her thumb hovered over the home button on her phone to exit the app but she didn’t press down.  She shook her head, going back to Chloe’s account, the pictures started again but in the next picture Chloe’s blue hair was dark blonde, smiling in earnest, her arms around Rachel.

She continued scrolling down, there was a picture of Chloe laying face down on a bed, naked from the waist up with sheets covering her lower body, below that was a nearly identical picture of Rachel.

There was a fifteen second video of Rachel giving an apartment tour, through the tiny studio apartment that would have fit in half of their current living room.  “Show the kitchen,” Chloe’s voice said off camera.  “Look, we shit where we eat.”  The camera turned to the tiny kitchen, a shower and toilet were placed right next to the kitchen counter.  “We need to get a curtain,” Rachel said.

There were several pictures of them kissing, of Rachel sitting in Chloe’s lap, Rachel and Chloe on a beach, in the bed of an old truck, laying on train tracks, and, the very first picture, Chloe holding her middle finger up at “Welcome to Arcadia Bay” sign through the back window of the truck.

“Look who’s stalking.”

Max’s phone flew out of her hands when she heard her roommate’s voice. She hadn’t even heard Victoria come home.  Before Max could move to grab her phone, Victoria had it in her hand, her eyes widening when she saw the pictures Max was looking at.  “Holy shit, is that Rachel Amber?”

Max cleared her throat, moving one hand through her hair.  “Maybe,” she muttered.

“Oh, and the assistant.”  She looked at her sympathetically then continued looking through Chloe’s pictures.

Max snatched her phone back.  “Why do I tell you things?”

Victoria sat on the couch next to her.  “Because I’m your best friend.”

“You called me Macy for three months when we roomed together in college.”

University of Washington placed her in a dorm with Victoria Chase during their junior year.  For a month they’d ignored each other’s existence, then they slowly starting exchanging pleasantries when they happened to in their dorm at the same time, which Max tried to avoid as much as possible.  She’d decided it was going to be a long and painful year, when Victoria sat in the room crying over her high school boyfriend cheating on her, Max sat on the bed with her and comforted her.   After that, they became something resembling friends, going to parties together, having lunch together on the days their schedules worked out, and helping each other with projects.  Victoria would sometimes be Max’s model for photography projects and Max would help Victoria run lines for the play she was in.

After graduation Victoria set off for Los Angeles to become a hair and makeup artist, six months later offering Max her couch if she wanted to give the city a try. Nearly a year after, Max still slept on the pullout couch in the one-bedroom apartment and paid a third of the rent.

Victoria gave her some excuse about why she’d gotten Max’s name wrong, but Max wasn’t listening.  She continued looking through the pictures of Chloe and Rachel, trying to find where their relationship declined, but there were no hints.  They looked happy, until suddenly they weren’t.  Chloe didn’t post anything for eight months after the song lyrics, then there was a screenshot from the end credits of a movie, the rest of the screen blurred out except for one tiny line “Assistant to Ms. Amber…. Chloe Price”, captioned simply “#madeit”.

She figured going back five years on Rachel’s account to try to fill in some blanks would be much more difficult and time consuming, she was more active on social media than Chloe was.  But still, Max realized she’d lost nearly two hours of her day on Chloe’s Instagram.

“Max,” Victoria said her name, bring her out of her thoughts.  “I’m worried about you.”

“Why?” She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“You’re Instagram stalking.  And what’s worse, you’re not even going after the person you should be.  I mean, you meet Rachel Amber, you go to her house… Rachel Amber.  Rachel _freaking_ Amber.  And you don’t talk to her.  You don’t even say two words to her.”

“What was I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know, network, offer your best friend’s makeup expertise on her next movie?  Suggest a threesome, looks like they’d be up for it.”

Max rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t even expecting to see her.”

“And that’s the other problem.  Anyone else would have chatted up Rachel Amber during that photoshoot, not the assistant.”

Max shrugged her shoulders.  “She’s not my type.”

“Oh, please, she’s everyone’s type.  That’s the whole point of her being Rachel Amber.”

“Fine,” Max said, tucking her phone into her pocket.  “You sleep with her then.”

“At least I would if I had the chance.”

Max’s phone buzzed, she sighed as she pulled it out of the back pocket of her jeans, figuring it was Jefferson asking why she was late, but it was a private number.

_Hey this is Chloe.  Sorry if this is hella weird but your number was on Jefferson’s site.  Can we talk?_

Max stared at the screen, Victoria looked over her shoulder to look at the phone.   “At least you’re not the only one stalking,” she said.  Max turned her head to look at her.  “One question, who says hella?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote on Chloe's instagram is from the Bad Religion song You


	4. Chapter 4

Max found Chloe standing against a building near the coffee cart, holding two cups of coffee, standing up straighter when she saw her walking towards her.

“Plain black, right?” Chloe asked, holding one cup towards her.

“Yep,” Max told her, taking the coffee.  “Normal.  Boring.”

“Boring?  Black coffee is hardcore.  Not many people take it plain black, gotta have milk or something to change the flavor of it.”

“What kind of coffee does Rachel drink?”

“Green tea,” Chole laughed.  “Might as well be drinking grass.”

Max cleared her throat, taking a sip of her coffee as she and Chloe started walking down the sidewalk.  “So was she mad that I was in her house?”

“Well, to be completely technical, it’s my house too.  Sometimes it can seem like Rachel’s got a stick shoved so far up her ass, you need to send a mining team in to get it but she’s cool once you get to know her.”

Max nodded, still trying to sort through what she’d seen on Instagram earlier.  She shook her head before she let herself fall too far down that rabbit hole. “What did you need to talk to me about?”

“Oh, yeah.  Honestly, I didn’t.  I just wanted to see you.  You Ubered out so fast, I didn’t get a chance to get your number.”

“Well, you didn’t seem to have any trouble finding it,” she muttered, moving her thumb along the edge of her cup. 

“It was harder to find than my Instagram page.  Next time don’t double tap, maxiplier,” she whispered Max’s Instagram handle, leaning down close to Max’s ear. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t double tap,” Max insisted but Chloe was laughing.   She thought back, racing through her mind to remember if she’d seen any red hearts appear.  “Victoria,” she said with a groan.  “That son of a bitch.”

“Oh, so you didn’t like that naked picture of me?” Chloe asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Max said.  “I mean yes.  I mean… no!  I… you weren’t really naked.”  Max closed her eyes, shaking her head.  “Oh my god, just kill me now.”

Chloe laughed again, putting a cigarette into her mouth then lighting it.  “So did you like what you saw?”

“Seriously, push me into traffic.”

“Relax, I’m yanking your chain.”  She took a puff from her cigarette.  “So are you gonna ask?”

“Ask what?”

“I know you saw the pictures of me and Rachel.”

Max shrugged.  “It’s not really any of my business.”  She paused, swallowing hard before she looked up at Chloe.  “Do you still love her?”

She exhaled quickly.  “I love the girl I fell in love with seven years ago.  She’s still my best friend and what’s that saying, something about if you stay friends with your ex, either you were never really in love or you still are.”  She cleared her throat, bouncing lightly on her heels, holding her cigarette between her fingers against her thigh.

“Or it means that she means a lot to you and you knew that even if you weren’t meant to be together that way, you didn’t want to lose your best friend.”

“She was all I had… we were all each other had.  We ran away, came out here with a truck older than us, whatever we could stuff in our backpacks, and twelve hundred bucks Rachel had saved.  We had nothing.  Not to sound totally cheesy but we had nothing and at the same time we had everything we needed.”

“So what happened?”

Chloe smiled wanly.  “What happened to it not being your business?”

“I asked a yes or no question, you offered the rest.”  She shrugged.  “You don’t need to tell me.”

Chloe shrugged one shoulder, putting her cigarette into her mouth, letting it hang from the corner of her lips.  “Hollywood happened.  It was like one day I fell asleep next to Rachel, my Rachel, then I woke up the next morning and she was Rachel Amber.  Like she was taken over by a pod person, she became who they wanted her to be.   It didn’t even matter, I still loved her and as long as my Rachel was still in there somewhere, I was okay.  And then… well, it got really bad really quick and there was no going back.  Too much damage was done, we couldn’t fix it.”

Max stayed silent, walking next to Chloe.  She wanted to push for more details, but she could tell Chloe was starting to get upset.   “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,” she said softly.

Chloe shrugged.  “Like you said, I didn’t need to tell you but I did.  Anyway, I stuck around because I was worried about her, because I wanted to keep an eye on her.  I didn’t want to pick up a magazine one day and read about how she overdosed or something, so we figured out how to be friends and now here we are.  Really my only other option was going home to Arcadia Bay and that wasn’t gonna happen.”

 “That really sucks.  I’m sorry.”

She shook her head.  “Don’t be.  It was a while ago.  I really shouldn’t have told you all that but…”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised.

“It’s hard knowing who to trust, that’s why Rach was upset about you being there.  Everyone in this town’s looking for a payday.”

“You can trust me.”

“If I find out I can’t, I’ll just have to kill you,” Chloe said casually. 

“Why do I have a feeling you’re not joking?”

She shrugged one shoulder quickly.  “It’s good to follow your gut.  My gut tells me you’re not that stupid.”


	5. Chapter 5

Chloe walked into the house, tripping over a small carryon bag, then looked at the two suitcases near the front door.  “Rachel?” she called.  “Rachel, what’s going on?”  She went upstairs, going to Rachel’s bedroom and knocked before opening the door.  She was packing another suitcase on her bed.  “What are you doing?”

Rachel looked up at her and sighed in relief.  “Finally, you’re home.  Where have you been all day?”  When Chloe opened her mouth to answer, Rachel shook her head.  “It doesn’t matter.  Listen, Emma had to drop out of that new Hunter Graham movie and they want me to step in and be the new lead.”

“Which Emma?”

“Does it matter?   She broke her wrist or something and luckily, they’re only a couple weeks into production but they need me there like yesterday.  Go get packed.”

Chloe stood where she was. “She broke her wrist?  Is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Rachel told her, sounding annoyed.  “Chloe, please, go get packed.  We leave first thing in the morning. Pack warm, Toronto gets cold in November.”

Chloe turned to go to her room, then paused at Rachel’s last sentence.   “Toronto?  November?  Filming’s gonna be four months?”

“Hopefully that’s all.  I hope they’re not more than two weeks behind.”

Chloe shook her head.  “Did you even read the script?”

“I will on the plane.  It doesn’t matter, Chloe.  There’s already Oscar hype around it.  Go get packed,” she told her again.  “Oh, and find out which Emma and send her a get well soon card.”  When Chloe didn’t move, Rachel sighed softly.  “If this is about your new girlfriend…”

“She isn’t…” Chloe started to interrupt but Rachel kept talking.

“This is what I’ve been waiting my whole life for, Chloe.  Do not do this to me now.”  She straightened up, clearing her throat as she crossed her arms.  “I guess I could find a new assistant.  One who isn’t too busy for me.”

“I’m not too busy for you, Rach.”  She ran both her hands through her hair.  “I just… this coming out of nowhere and…”

“Well, sometimes that just happens.  They could have gone to anybody else, they came to me.”

“What, is Jennifer Lawrence filming X-Men?”

“Yes,” she muttered.  “But so what?  It just means this was meant to be.”

“So someone got hurt so you could get a good part? I hope for your sake that karma really isn’t a bitch.”  Chloe shook her head and walked to her room, her luggage was already at the foot of her bed.  She went to her closet and pulled as much as she could off the rod and threw the clothes onto the bed, scratching the back of her head before she pulled her phone out of her back pocket to text Max.

She sat on her bed, looking at the screen, tapping the edge of her phone with her thumb.   She wasn’t sure what the rules were in this situation.  They’d only talked a few times, they barely knew each other but there was something, something that scared Chloe.  Something she’d only felt for one other person.

Her relationship with Rachel was a whirlwind.  She fell fast and hard, she followed Rachel without a second thought, drove fifteen hours then stood on the sidelines while Rachel chased her dreams.  Then, after two years, Rachel decided Chloe wasn’t enough for her anymore.

She didn’t need to tell Max she was leaving, she knew that she didn’t need to explain anything to her but just disappearing for months didn’t feel right either. Would she even realize she was gone?  Would she just move on, forget she existed, get coffee with something else at their coffee cart?

 _Their_ coffee cart?  Chloe shook her head at the thought.  _They_ didn’t have anything.

She finally typed a quick message, deciding she didn’t care if Max responded or not.

_Rachel’s filming a movie on Toronto.  We’re leaving for four months._

Even though she told herself she wouldn’t respond, she didn’t look away from her phone until the dot-dot-dot bubble appeared at the bottom of the screen.

_When?_

_Tomorrow morning._

_Oh._

Chloe looked at the short response from Max, waiting for a follow up message but none came.

 _Do you want to do something when I come back?_ Delete.

 _If you don’t meet anybody do you think maybe…_ Delete.

She saw the dot-dot-dot bubble reappear.

_I’m going home to Seattle for Thanksgiving._

Chloe wasn’t sure if she’d even be in the country for Thanksgiving.  If filming happened to last exactly four months, she’d be back a week before the holiday.  She also might not be back until early December.

_Hopefully I’ll be back before then._

_What were you going to say?_

“Betrayed by the dots,” Chloe muttered then typed a message, pressing send quickly.

_Maybe someday we’ll be in the same city at the same time._

_Hope so._

_Me too._

“What are you, twelve?” she said aloud.  “Ask her out.  Just ask her out, moron.” Before she could type her response, a new message appeared.

_What are you doing December 17th?_

She stared at Max’s message, blinking once as she typed a response.

_Nothing.  Why?_

_I’m also not doing anything._

Chloe laughed, tapping the side of her phone again before sending a response.

_We could do something._

_We could._

She smiled at her phone, putting it down on her bed before getting up to start packing when she heard her phone chime that she had a new message.

_Wait like a date right?_

Chloe laughed again, typing a quick response.

_Yeah.  If you want._

_Yeah._ Another message followed immediately. _You should get some rest.  Have a safe flight. See you in a few months._

Chloe finally put down her phone and started to fold her clothes to pack them.  This was going to be a long four months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing texts is so awkward... I'm sorry in advance for the next several chapters. Someday Max and Chloe will figure out how to talk to each other, virtually and in real life.


	6. Chapter 6

Max sat at her computer in Jefferson’s studio, touching up pictures from a wedding shoot they’d done, glancing down at her phone every few minutes.  She reached over to unlock it, went to her messages and looked at her most recent messages in her conversation with Chloe, the last text she received was an hour after Chloe texted her to let her know the plane had landed.  Or as Chloe put it: _the plane didn’t crash! I’m alive!_

She had told Max they were going to their hotel and getting settled but she would text her when she had a chance.  It had been a whole day and Max didn’t want to seem clingy, she figured Chloe had to be busy and just didn’t have time.  She finally picked up her phone, biting down on her bottom lip while she tried to think of something more to say than hi.

“Do we need to have a talk about using your phone during working hours?” Jefferson asked behind her.

Max quickly put her phone face down on her desk.  “No.  I was just…”

“You were just wasting my company’s time.  I’m not paying you to play on your phone, Max.”

She turned around to look at him, he only ever reminded her she was being paid by him when she was in trouble.  “It was just for a second. It won’t happen again.  My friend’s in Toronto and…”

“It’s cute that you think I care about your personal life.  Perhaps your friend will take some interesting photos in Toronto, something that will actually impress me then they can be my new assistant.  It would be nice to have help with actual talent.  Remember how easy it is for me to replace you, Max.”

Max nodded, turning quickly to open her desk drawer and putting her phone into it.  No sooner had she closed the drawer, she heard her phone vibrate, the sound of her phone sliding across the metal seemed to fill the room.  She didn’t look at the drawer, keeping her eyes on Jefferson, who was looking at her desk, where the phone was hidden.

Finally, the ringing stopped and Jefferson nodded.  “I hope it’s nothing important, because you won’t be answering until lunch.”

 Max nodded and silently turned back to her computer.

“And, Max?” he said, she looked over her shoulder.  “If you ever expect to touch a camera here, I expect to see more than Polaroids of the ocean.”

She let out a breath as he walked away, going back to the picture she was working on. 

Max had her phone back out within the first thirty seconds of her lunch hour, seeing three new texts from Chloe.

Chloe: _Sorry I couldn’t talk yesterday, been hella busy trying to get caught up._  
Chloe: _We had to start filming right away._  
Chloe: _Guess you’re busy too._  
Max: _Jefferson caught me on my phone right before you texted me.  Sorry I had to ignore you._  
Max: _Not that I was waiting for you to text me._  
Max: _I totally wasn’t staring at my phone waiting for you to text me.  
_ Chloe _: Smooth.  I totally believe you._

Max shook her head, felling a blush rise on her cheeks.

Max: _How’s filming going?_  
Chloe: _Well, Rachel didn’t learn any of her lines yet and it took most of yesterday to get through one scene.  Luckily today’s going better so far.  I had to stay up all night running lines with her._  
Chloe _: We’re both running on Red Bull.  The coffee’s crap. Not even worth the effort of making it._  
Max _: Aw, poor baby’s sleepy._  
Chloe _: Yeah, it’s funny until I hit full on withdrawal._  
Max _: There are Starbucks everywhere, I’m sure you’ll be able to get your fix._  
Chloe _: I’ll turn into a twitching mess before I drink Starbucks.  
_ Max _: At least you’re not overreacting._

 

* * *

 

 

Chloe: _I miss good coffee.  Crap on set tastes like tar._  
Chloe _: I just realized it’s 2am there.  I’m sorry._  
Chloe _:  Also it’s 5am here and I’m awake._  
Chloe _: 17 hour shoot today.  Pray for me._  
Chloe _:  I hope that your phone’s on silent while you’re sleeping and if it’s not you probably hate me now._  
Chloe _: Please don’t hate me._  
Chloe _: You’d be surprised how boring it is on set when you have nothing to do.  
_ Chloe _: Crap, you're sleeping.  Sorry._

Max woke up after her alarm to eight notifications from Chloe, all timestamped within thirty minutes of each other.  She squinted at her phone, smiling as she read the messages then got out of bed, pushing the pullout couch back together before going to the bathroom.  She kicked the door to Victoria’s door as she passed it.  “Using the bathroom,” she called.

She got ready and dressed for work, kicking Victoria’s door again as she walked past.  “Out.  You’re up.”

Victoria came out of her bedroom and shuffled into the bathroom.  “Have a good day,” she muttered.

“Try not to give anyone a skin disease,” Max called as she left, looking down at her phone.

Max: _I’ll have a cup for you._  
Max: _My phone’s always on vibrate so text me whenever, it won't wake me up._  
Max: _17 hours? That sucks!  You get a break right?_  
Chloe: _Yeah, we get a couple hour long breaks for meals._  
Chloe: _Also good morning.  Even though it’s noon here.  I’ve been awake for seven hours, you bitch._  
Max: _Only ten hours to go!_  
Max: _Hey, I can’t help it.  One good thing about Jeffershit, my hours are 10-5_.  
Chloe: _I’m not going to say I laughed out loud at Jeffershit because I didn’t, only because its quiet on the set time but if it wasn’t, I would have laughed out loud.  
_ Max _: Good to know._

Max got into her car and pulled out away from her parking space at the coffee cart and took a picture of her cup, sending it to Chloe.

Chloe: _You bitch!  I need good coffee!_  
Max _: How many times are you going to call me a bitch?  Also, get a Keurig._  
Chloe _: Blasphemy! And five more times._  
Max _: Okay, get it out of your system then._  
Chloe _: I’m not going to call you a bitch for no reason._  
Max _: That counted as one._  
Chloe _: Bitch._  
Chloe _: Wait, that one didn’t count!  
_ Max _: Three. Use them wisely._

She put her car back into drive and went to Jefferson’s studio, glancing at the dark brown stain on the beige passenger seat.  She snapped a picture of her seat and sent it to Chloe.

Max: _This is why I’m scared of coffee in the car._  
Chloe _: It makes you shit yourself so hard it hits the other seat?_  
Max _: Wow… I thought you were nice.  I was wrong._  
Max _: Bye._  
Chloe _: Wait come back!_  
Chloe _: I’m nice._  
Chloe _: That’s a lie.  I’m an asshole but I am nice to people I like and I like you._  
Max _: I like you too._  
Max _: Relax, I was just messing with you._  
Chloe _: Okay, this one’s worth it._  
Chloe _: Bitch._  
Max _: Okay.  Bitch gotta work._  
Chloe _: Yeah, I’m probably gonna get in trouble soon too._  
Max _: Get off the phone if you’re not allowed.  What are you doing?_  
Chloe _: Talking to you is worth the risk._  
Max _: That’s sweet.  Get off your phone._  
Chloe _: Bossy.  I like it.  Talk to you later?_  
Max _: Later._  
Chloe _: Bitch._  
Max _: (eye roll emoji)_  
Chloe _: You use emojis? Well, this relationship is over._  
Chloe _: Not really._  
Chloe: _(eggplant emoji)  
_ Max _: Well, that escalated quickly..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weird text flirting is easier than flirting in real life, Max can't trip over anything in front of Chloe.
> 
> Also, I want to assure everyone Chloe leaving will be worth it in the long run. Trust me.


	7. Chapter 7

Chloe groaned softly when someone knocked on the door of her hotel room.  “Go away,” she called barely lifting her head off the pillow.

“Chloe, open the door.”

She reached for her phone, checking the time before rolling out of bed with a heavy sigh.  She opened the door, leaning against it as she looked at Rachel.  “What are you doing? It’s 3 o’clock and we have a 5:45 call time.”

“I couldn’t sleep.  You always could help me fall asleep.”

Chloe sighed again, then stepped back to allow Rachel into the room.  She watched as the actress sat on the bed then closed the door and walked over to the bed, sitting on the other side of the mattress.

“What?” Rachel laughed.  “Do I have cooties?”

“What do you want, Rach?  What are you doing?”

“I miss you,” she said, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear.

“I just saw you like seven hours ago,” Chloe reminded her, shaking her head.

"No, Chloe. I mean it. I miss you.  I miss us.”

Chloe’s eyes narrowed.  “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.  I still have dreams about us.  About you and me, taking over the world like we always planned.”  Rachel moved closer to Chloe and took her hand. “Don’t you?”

Chloe looked down at their hands then back to Rachel.  “My dreams about you are more like nightmares now.  It’s been five years…”

“And it’s been a horrible five years.  I didn’t know if you could ever forgive me.”  She looked at Chloe’s frown.  “Maybe you still haven’t.  But doesn’t time heal all wounds?”

“Not when the wound is walking in on you in bed… in our bed, with your co-star from Evermore.  You looked at me, looked me right in the eyes and you didn’t even stop.  Then he gets up and I’m still standing there like a moron and then he says, ‘you must be Rachel’s roommate’.  Your roommate.”  She shook her head.  "And I realized that's what I was to you, just your roommate, who you also happened to have sex with."

“You're so much more than that.  I was stupid.  I was so stupid.  And I’m so sorry.”

Chloe laughed humorlessly.  “I heard all the apologies years ago and it means even less now.”

“I was a stupid kid.  I’ve grown up.  We both have.  I know what I want.  I want you.  I want to do all the things we talked about doing.  All those plans we made, I want that. Chloe, I’ll never hurt you again.  I love you.”

Chloe stood up and started clapping.  “Wow, if this movie doesn’t get you that Oscar nom, that definitely would have.  That’s the best acting you’ve ever done. Too bad there’s no cameras around.”

“I’m not acting.”

“Bullshit.  You acted for two years.”

“I love you,” Rachel told her.  “I have never and would never lie to you about that.”  She got up and walked over to Chloe, taking both of her hands in hers.  “Tell me you don’t love me too.  Tell me and I’ll leave.”

Chloe just shook her head, Rachel leaned up to kiss her but she stepped back.  “This is about Max, isn’t it?”

“What does Max have to do with anything?”

“Why else would you do this now?  You've had every opportunity to do this before and you choose now.”

“Because when I tried to say all this then, you wouldn’t listen.  I thought maybe now that it's been so long, at least I’d have a chance.” She reached up to brush Chloe’s hair out of her face.  “We used to make each other so happy.  Don’t you remember that?”

She nodded.  “Vaguely.  Most of the happy memories are kind of overshadowed by the image of you with some guy’s dick in your mouth.  The fact that I spoke to you after that, shows how much I care about you and I do want you in my life.”  She walked to the door and held it open. “But I don’t love you and I never will again.”

Rachel nodded and walked to the door.  She touched Chloe’s cheek and pressed her lips quickly to hers.  “Don’t say never,” she whispered.

Chloe stood still and shook her head.  “Never.”

She closed the door after Rachel left the room and walked back to the bed, picking up her phone.  She looked at her conversation with Max.

It was almost one in the morning for her.  She’d be asleep but still Chloe typed a quick message: _miss you._

She put her phone on the bedside table and laid down against the pillows, smiling when heard her phone chirp.

_I miss you too._


	8. Chapter 8

Max looked at her phone as it beeped on the arm of the couch as she and Victoria watched TV.  She picked it up, frowning when she saw Chloe’s picture on the screen requesting a FaceTime call.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had a SexTime date,” Victoria said.  “Should I make myself scarce?”

Max rolled her eyes.  “Shut up.  She didn’t say anything about FaceTiming today, she might have just pressed the wrong button.”

“If she did, she would have hung up by now.  Answer it.  I just want to say hi and introduce myself to your girlfriend and then I’ll leave.”

“Okay, two things,” Max said as the ringing continues.  “She’s not my girlfriend…”

“Semantics.  You stay up all night talking to her, you’re on your phone constantly when you used to only be mildly interested in it before.  If you ask me, people are too obsessed with titles.”

Max sighed.  “And if you…”

“Jesus, idiot, she’s going to hang up.”  Victoria rolled her eyes, leaning over to accept the call.  “Hi Chloe,” she said, leaning over Max’s arm so she was in front of the phone.

Chloe frowned at the image on her screen.  “Hi,” she said, sounding confused.  “Sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”

Max shoved Victoria away with her free hand.  “I don’t.  This is Victoria.  You know, my asshole roommate.”

“Your amazing roommate who lets you live on her couch, you mean?” Victoria said, looking at Max.

Chloe sighed softly.  “Uh, hey,” she muttered.  “Can you leave us alone?  I really need to talk to Max.”

“Right,” Victoria said with a smirk.  “Talk.  Sure, you guys just enjoy and be careful if you save anything, you don’t want anything ending up on the internet.”

"What?" Chloe asked, but she was ignored.

Max shoved Victoria again until the girl finally went to her bedroom. Max watched the door close before looking back at her phone screen.  “Sorry about her, she’s just…” she trailed off when she noticed Chloe looking away from her camera, her eyes red.  “Are you okay?”

Chloe shook her head then nodded.  “I don’t know why I’m being so… I don’t know why I even called you.  It’s not normally this bad.  I don’t know why this year…”

“What’s going on?” Max asked, picking up the remote to turn the TV off.   “What’s normally not this bad?  What’s wrong?”

“Great, now you’re worried.”  Chloe ran her hand over her face.  “Sorry, I didn’t… shit.”

“Hey, hey, stop.  Talk to me.  Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s dumb.  It’s my dad, twelve years ago he was in a car accident… he died.”

“Chloe,” Max said softly, wishing she could hold her.  “It’s not dumb.  You never told me… I don’t know what to say.  I’m so sorry.  What’s going on?  Did something happen?”

“Kind of,” she mumbled.  “A few days ago we filmed a car crash scene.  It wasn’t even the same kinda thing that happened to my dad so I don’t know…”

“Was it Rachel’s character?”

“No.  What difference would it make if it was?”

Max shrugged.  “Maybe on some level you’re scared of something happening to her, especially with those fancy sportscars she has.”

Chloe shook her head.  “She doesn’t even drive them, just likes to have them around to look at.  Sometimes she’ll drive one to an event or party or something but normally they just sit in the driveway.  Completely pointless.  I don't know.  I just realized what day it is and I just...” she trailed off, shaking her head again.

“Baby, there’s nothing wrong with missing your dad.”

Chloe tilted her head.  “Did you just call me baby?”

“No,” Max said, realizing the word had slipped out without her thinking.  “I didn’t.  We must have a bad connection or something.”

Chloe managed a tiny smile.  “I know this is gonna sound super lame, but can we stay on the phone until we go to sleep?”

Max noticed the time on the top of her phone, realizing how late it was for Chloe.  “It’s not lame.  Just hang on a sec while I change, okay?”  She placed her phone on the arm of the couch and ran to the bathroom to change into her pajamas then pulled the bed out of the couch, tossing her pillow onto the mattress before getting on the bed and laying down on her side, plugging her phone in then propping her phone on the bed next to her.  “I’m here,” she told her.

Chloe smiled as she laid down in her hotel bed.  “Three more months.”

“Maybe then we can do this for real,” Max said softly.

“What’d you say?” Chloe asked, lifting her head slightly.

“Nothing.  I didn’t say that out loud.”

Chloe laughed.  “Yeah, right.  Dork.”

 

* * *

 

 

Max woke up the next morning and looked at her phone, seeing a white ceiling on her screen.  “Chloe?”

Chloe’s hand covered the camera as she picked up her phone.  “It didn’t disconnect,” she murmured.  She looked at her phone, smiling sleepily.  “You have cute bedhead.”

“Now who’s a dork?”

“Still you.”

Victoria’s bedroom door opened, Max turned her head to look at her.  “You guys are still going?” she said, raising an eyebrow to look at her roommate.  “Damn, Nate only lasts like three minutes before he passes out.”

Max blinked then rolled over to look at Victoria.  “Okay, I’ll never be able to look at Nathan ever again.  You’re gonna have to go to his place from now on.”

“Fine by me,” Victoria said.  “His penthouse is amazing.  We only stay here so you won’t be lonely.”

“You really don’t need to be here for my benefit.”

Chloe laughed.  “Morning, Victoria,” she said.

“Good morning, Chloe,” she sang back.

“Max,” Chloe whispered, Max turned back to her phone.  “I bet the view from my place is better.”

Max nodded.  “Just don’t tell her that.”


	9. Chapter 9

“I’m so happy you came back early,” Max whispered, straddling Chloe’s hips as they lay on her bed. 

Chloe smiled as Max leaned down to kiss her.  “I was stupid for ever leaving.”

Max pushed herself up to look at her, propping herself on her elbow.  “You did what you had to.  It’s your job.  I know, you need to go where Rachel goes.”

“Can we not talk about Rachel right now?” she whispered, her hands against Max’s thighs.

Max grinned.  “We don’t need to talk at all.”

“I like the way you think,” Chloe murmured as Max leaned down to kiss her again.

“I just want you to know, I’ll never hurt you again,” she whispered against Chloe’s lips.

“Again?”

Max sat up again, Chloe blinked when she saw that it wasn’t Max on top of her, it was Rachel. She smiled, the famous Rachel Amber smile.  Perfect and sweet.  And fake.

“What are you doing here?” Chloe asked, pushing herself up.  “What happened to Max?”

“You don’t want Max,” Rachel told her, tucking a strand of light blue hair behind her ear.  “You want me.  I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”  Chloe started to shake her head, but Rachel continued.  “You don’t know Max.  She doesn’t understand you, she can’t.  I do.  I’m the only person who understands you.  I know you, Chloe.  I know every freckle, every scar.”

Chloe squeezed her eyes shut as Rachel started kissing her neck.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” Rachel whispered, nipping against Chloe’s collarbone.

“I’m…” Chloe started but the words died on her lips.

“You what?” Rachel asked.  “Tell me to stop and I will.”

“Don’t,” Chloe mumbled.

“What?”

Chloe opened her eyes, looking at Rachel, straddling her hips and waiting for an answer.  Chloe finally shook her head.  “Don’t stop.”

This time, Chloe kissed her back, fisting one hand into her long blonde hair as they fell back onto the bed together.

Chloe swore as her eyes sprung open, looking around the dark hotel room.  She felt the space next to her, finding the bed empty.  She let out a quick breath, her hand moving over the cool sheets then rubbed her eyes with the heels of both hands.

She reached for her phone, blinking at the time on the screen.  Four hours until she had to be on set.  She opened her texts to Max, sending a quick message: _you up?_

She put her phone down on her stomach as she laid back against the pillow, one arm behind her head as she looked up at the ceiling, unwilling to let her eyes close again. 

Her phone didn’t ring.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey.” Rachel snapped her fingers in front of Chloe’s face, making her jump as Rachel took the bottle of water Chloe held from her hand.  “What’s wrong with you?”

Chloe watched Rachel take a sip of the water and shook her head.  “I just didn’t sleep very good last night.  Had kind of a weird dream.”

Rachel frowned.  “What kind of weird dream?”

 _The sex kind._ Chloe shook the thought away then shrugged.  “I don’t really remember.  You know when you wake up and know you had a bad dream but don’t know what it was?”

Rachel nodded.  “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Sure.”

Rachel sighed, sitting on the chair next to Chloe.  “Do you really think that after all these years, I can’t tell when something’s bothering you?  It’ll be easier on both of us if you just tell me what’s wrong.”

Chloe looked up as a makeup artist came over to Rachel, touching up her face with a makeup sponge.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re… being primped.”

Rachel raised her hand at the makeup artist.  “Can this wait?” she asked.

“Not really.”  The other girl titled Rachel’s head back, touching up her neck and chin.  “Continue, I won’t listen.”

Chloe watched Rachel sit still, her eyes closed as she got her make up done before she slowly slid out of the chair.  “I think I just need a smoke break.”

“Good enough,” Rachel replied.  “Let me know if you need to talk later.”

Chloe only nodded as she walked to the door of the studio, pushing it open and stepping quickly outside as she pulled a cigarette out of the pack from her back pocket and lit it.  She sat on the ground against the wall with the cigarette in her mouth and pulled out her phone, seeing a message from Max.

Max: _Sorry, I just woke up.  What’s wrong?_  
Max: _Let me know if you need to talk._  
Chloe: _There’s a lot you don’t know about me._  
Max: _Did you kill someone?_  
Chloe: _Well, there was that one time I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die._  
Max: _I hate when that happens!_  
Max: _Talk to me._  
Chloe: _How much time do you have?_  
Max: _As much as you need._


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to way too much early-2000s Britney Spears writing this chapter and I'm sorry in advance, you'll probably be able to tell.

Chloe walked into the kitchen of the hotel, frowning when she saw Rachel standing near the back wall wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. “What’s going on?  We’re gonna be late.”

Rachel nodded towards the doors.  “We’re surrounded by paps.”

Chloe went to the door but didn’t open it, turning instead towards Rachel. “I thought no one knew we were staying here.”

“I guess someone found out.”

“Great,” Chloe muttered, crossing her arms.  “Where the hell is Eli?  What’s the point of security if he’s gonna sleep through this?”

“He’s getting the car.  Get ready to move when he comes in.”

Chloe nodded silently, she was all too familiar with the routine of guiding Rachel through crowds of fans and photographers.

Eli walked in through the heavy steel door, a six-foot-five weight lifter Rachel had met during her early days in Hollywood.  He held one arm out to her, she walked to his side with Chloe close behind.  He pushed the door open, Rachel repositioned herself so she was walking between Eli and Chloe.

Immediately flashing bulbs started going off and pens and pictures were being thrust in Rachel’s direction.  She managed to sign a couple pictures before Chloe put her arm between Rachel and the crowd.

“I’m really sorry, but we don’t have time right now,” she yelled over the sound of the screaming crowd.

Rachel put her head down and continued walking behind Eli when a photographer reached out and grabbed her arm.  Eli quickly pulled her away, Chloe launched herself at the paparazzi, knocking the camera out of his hands.

“You broke my camera, you bitch!”

“Yeah? Touch her again, that’s not all I’ll break.”

More camera flashes started, this time in Chloe’s direction.

“Chloe!” Rachel yelled.  “Chloe, come on.”

“You’re gonna pay for that,” the photographer with the damaged camera told Chloe.

She swung her arm, first hitting him in the jaw then smashing her forehead against his.  She stumbled backwards, rubbing her head as pair of arms came around her, picking her up and carrying her to the waiting SUV.

Eli placed her into the backseat of the car next to Rachel then jumped into the front seat himself before the car took off.

“What the hell was that?” Rachel demanded.  “He’s probably going to sue, you do realize that don’t you?”

“I’m fine, Rach.  Thanks for asking,” Chloe mumbled, rubbing the swelling on her forehead.

“I’m serious.”

Chloe sighed, leaning back against the leather interior.  “He shouldn’t have grabbed you.”

“And you should have let Eli do his job.  I was already in the car when you started punching people.”

“I didn’t punch people.  I punched one guy.”

“One guy who’s probably going to claim you gave him a concussion.”  She released a breath.  “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.” 

 

* * *

 

 

Max: _What the hell happened?_  
Max: _It’s all over the news, you were in a fight._  
Max: _Did you punch a photographer?_  
Max: _Are you okay?_  
Max: _Why aren’t you answering your phone?_  
Max: _Are you okay?_  
Max: _Please just tell me you’re okay._  
Max: _Chloe, answer me._

Chloe sighed softly as she looked at the texts from Max, all coming within seconds of each other.  She glanced around at the outdoor set before she stood up from her chair, walking to a nearby tree where she wouldn’t be disturbing production and FaceTime called Max.

She answered immediately, frowning Chloe’s image.  “At least you’re not in the hospital.”

“I’m fine,” she told her.

“You have a bruise,” Max pointed out. 

Chloe touched her forehead, feeling a swollen lump.  “I’m fine,” she said again.

“Chloe, what’s going on?  You’ve been… off for days.  You’re busy, I get it but for a while it seemed like we were going somewhere but then… I don’t know.  You just kinda shut down.”

“Sorry,” Chloe mumbled.  “I hate Toronto.”

“Just keep thinking, it’ll be over before you know it.”

Chloe nodded.  “Somedays it feels like this movie’s never gonna get finished.”

“Is it that far behind schedule?” Max asked, frowning.

“It’s actually on time but the way things are going, the director’s cut is gonna be ten hours long.  The hours are insane, somehow Rachel’s had days off but I haven’t.”

“An assistant’s work is never done.”

Chloe let out a quick laugh and nodded.  “I’m just tired.  And for some reason I have this killer headache.”

“I’m sure using your skull as a battering ram can have that effect.”

“I’ll go get checked out after we wrap for the day if it’ll make you feel better.”

Max smiled.  “It will.  Soon as your doctor gives you a clean bill of health, Hover-Max will be gone.”

“Not that I don’t like Hover-Max, she’s just not my favorite.”

“Don’t get hurt and she won’t be around anymore.”


	11. Chapter 11

Chloe looked at her phone when it beeped that she had a new message, frowning when she saw it was from Rachel:  _My room.  Now._

She left her room and got on the hotel’s elevator, going upstairs to Rachel’s suite.  Rachel quickly opened the door, not smiling, and pointed to the couch.  “Sit.”

Chloe sighed, walking to the couch and falling onto it.  “How long is this gonna take? The doctor said I should avoid stress for a couple days.”

“This isn’t funny,” Rachel said, sitting in an arm chair next to the couch.  “That guy you beat up is suing me.”

“You?  Why is he suing you?”

“I don’t know, maybe he thinks he can get more money from me.”

“How much?”

Rachel picked up a small stack of papers that were on the table.  “Five hundred.”

“Five hundred bucks?” Chloe laughed.  “I think we can swing that.”

“Five hundred thousand,” Rachel told her, handing her the lawsuit paper.

Chloe stared at the papers then shook her head.  “No.  No way.  Emotional distress?  What the hell is emotional distress?  Cause he got beat by a girl?”

“You forgot emergency room fees and loss of income.  You gave him a concussion, he can’t work.  Look, I’m gonna pay whatever he wants and settle so it’ll be over but…”

“Why?  Rachel, this is bullshit and you know it.”

“There’s video of you smashing his camera then punching and headbutting him.”

“Okay, fine.  I did it.  Fine.  Whatever.  Half a million dollars is ridiculous.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not your choice.  It’s my neck on the line, not yours.”

Chloe frowned, shifting in her seat, uncomfortable with how serious Rachel was being.  “So what, if he was coming after me, you’d just let me rot in jail?”

“I’d let you sweat awhile but eventually I’d get you out.” She grinned.  “Don’t I always?”

Chloe rolled her eyes.  “Okay, I got arrested once and it would have been both of us if you didn’t bail on me.”

“I did not bail on you, it was your idea to try to steal a police horse, I told you not to.  You were too drunk to listen.”

“Told me not to?  You dared me to!”

“No, I said ‘wow, that’s a pretty horse’ and you said ‘you want it? I’ll get it’ and tried to push the cop off the saddle.  I can’t believe you didn’t get shot.”

“Why are you always involved when I get in trouble?”

“Because I pay you to follow me everywhere and before I paid you… well, you liked following me around then.”

Chloe nodded silently then cleared her throat.  “Speaking of paying me, I’m gonna pay you back for this whole lawsuit thing.”

“Oh, I know you are.  It’s going to come out of your paycheck, so I really hope you like working for me because you will be for the rest of your life.”

 

* * *

 

 

Chloe: _Tell me something happy._  
Max: _Um…_  
Max: _Victoria’s been staying at her boyfriend’s place, so I have the apartment to myself!_  
Max: _I jumped on her bed with my shoes on._  
Chloe: _I can’t tell if you’re joking about that or not, but either way that’s hilarious and kind of adorable._  
Max: _I didn’t but I really wanted to._  
Chloe: _Way to destroy my fantasy._  
Max: _Is everything okay with that thing with the photographer?  I’m trying to not pay attention to stuff on the TV and online._  
Chloe: _Rachel’s taking care of it so it’ll be over soon, if it’s ever really over._  
Max: _You’re not the first person to fight a paparazzi and you won’t be the last._  
Max: _It might not have been the best choice but you did what you thought you had to._  
Chloe: _Can we not talk about it?_  
Max: _Sorry._  
Chloe: _It’s fine._  
Chloe: _What else are you up to?_  
Max: _Booking my plane tickets to go to Seattle on Thanksgiving._  
Chloe: _I forgot about that._  
Chloe: _Great.  Soon as I get home, you’ll be leaving._

Chloe’s frowned at her phone when, instead of a text from Max, she saw Max’s face on her screen requesting a FaceTime.  She accepted the call, before she had a chance to speak Max began talking.

“So I thought doing this face to face would be better than doing this over text.  I mean, I’d rather do this in person but that’s not really possible…”

“Max,” Chloe interjected, shaking her head. “What?  What’s wrong?  What are you doing?”

“Um… well, I booked two tickets to Seattle.  Kind of thinking the same thing you were, that you’d be coming home and then I’d be leaving.  Even though I’d only be leaving for a week it’s…”

“Wait.  Wait, stop.” Chloe let out a quick chuckle.  “Are you asking me to go to Seattle with you?”

“Well, I… yeah.  But not like… you know, to meet my parents.  I mean, you’re gonna meet my parents, obviously but not like in a ‘meet the parents’ kind of way, you know?”

Chloe sighed softly, shaking her head.  “Max,” she said softly.

“You don’t want to,” Max said quickly.  “It’s totally fine.  You don’t have to, the ticket is refundable so I can…”

“I didn’t say I don’t want to.  It’s just… a lot.”

“Right.  Sorry.  It’s just as friends," she said quickly, her face panicked.  "I mean, I just thought, cause you said yourself you might not even be back so I figured you didn’t have plans and being alone on a holiday really sucks so… if I’m totally out of line, just tell me to stop and cancel your ticket.”

Chloe smiled.  “You’re not.  You’re not outta line.  I just wasn’t expecting it, you got me off guard.  It doesn’t happen a lot.”

The corner of Max's mouth twitched into half a smile before she looked worried again.  “Okay so… where do we stand now?”

“Well, I’m gonna have to work on my parent talk, I guess.”  She saw Max smile widely, she smiled as well.  “I’ve never been good at that.”

“Don’t worry about them.  Just don’t mention the earthquakes or the fires in LA cause then they'll be worried and won't let me come back, we’ll be fine.”

“So no death or destruction.  That really narrows my fields of conversation.”


	12. Chapter 12

Rachel followed Eli out the back doors of the hotel, not flanked by Chloe as she normally was.  She pulled the bill of her baseball cap low on her forehead, her head down. The photographers and reporters were waiting right outside the hotel, yelling questions at her as Eli moved her towards the car.

“Rachel, is it true that you’re being sued by the photographer Ms. Price had an altercation with?” one reported shouted.

“No comment,” Rachel replied, not looking up.

“Does no comment mean yes?”

She didn’t respond, which triggered a chorus of “Rachel, wait!” and “Ms. Amber, one more question!” 

One person yelled “where is Chloe? Did you fire her?”, making her pause.  She turned around to face the crowd when Eli opened the door of the car, removing her hat and sunglasses then handing them to Eli.

She ran her fingers through her hair.  “You guys would tell me if I had hat hair, right?” she asked the reporters with a laugh.

“You look great, Rachel!”

She smiled.  “I’m going to say this once, so everyone get your recording devices ready.” She paused, a hush fell over the reporters while they waited for her to speak.  “First of all, I did not fire my assistant but she is taking a day off.  We went to the hospital and except for a headache, she’s fine.  Just like all of us though, she needs some time to decompress, she deserves a day off even if this hadn’t happened.

“I want you all to know, I’m fortunate enough to have an assistant who also happens to be my best friend and we’ve been best friends since high school.  There’s been times in both of our lives when all we’ve had to rely on is each other and sometimes that’s still true.  If you hurt one of us, you hurt both of us.  I’m not excusing what Chloe did, but in the heat of the moment, she did what she thought she had to do to protect me.  Most videos of the incident don’t show that I was grabbed on the arm by Mr. Harris and even though I was okay and there wasn’t any threat, it was enough for Chloe to react.  I would do the same for her.”

She put her hat and sunglasses back on, the reporters called her name.   “That’s all. Thank you,” she said, smiling and raising her hand in a quick wave before she got into the backseat of the car and closed the door.

 

* * *

 

 

Max: _A little birdy told me you have the day off!_  
Chloe: _What little birdy would that be?_  
Max: _TMZ_  
Chloe: _What happened to staying away from news about me?_  
Max: _The video of Rachel was trending and Victoria showed me._  
Max: _Don’t be mad._  
Max: _Are you mad?_  
Max: _You’re mad._  
Max: _I’m sorry._

Chloe laughed, going to request a FaceTime call with Max.  “I’m sorry,” Max said after answering.

She shook her head. “I’m not mad.  Well, not about that.”

Max frowned.  “Okay.  So, what are you mad about?”

“I’m just generally pissed off like 90% of the time,” Chloe told her with a shrug.  “You’ll get used to it.”

“Chloe.”

“Max.”

Max sighed.  “Stop it.  Talk to me.”

“I’m fine,” she told her.  She looked at Max’s frown and shook her head.  “I guess I’m just bored. I’m not used to doing nothing.  Dealing with Rachel is a 24/7 job.”  
  
“Then enjoy it,” Max encouraged.  “Go out, go exploring.  See the CN Tower!”

“I can’t leave the hotel.  Paparazzi have it surrounded.”  She rolled out of her bed and went to the window, turning her phone so Max could see the throng of people outside of the hotel.  “Just waiting for me to come out and punch someone again.”

Max sighed, shaking her head as Chloe turned the phone back to look at her. “I hate them.”  She shrugged her shoulders then grinned. “Oh well, the CN Tower is just a knockoff of the Space Needle anyway.”

Chloe groaned, walking back to the bed and falling onto it.  “You’re going to make me go to the Space Needle while we’re in Seattle, aren’t you?”

Max laughed.  “All the way to the top!”

“Good, so I can jump off,” she muttered, unable to hold back her smile.

Max stuck her tongue out.  “There’s a net, Miss I-Hate-Everything.”

“I don’t hate everything.  There are things I like.”  She paused, thinking for a moment. “There are five things that I like.”

"I hope one of them is me."

"One of them is you."


	13. Chapter 13

Max looked up as Victoria walked into the apartment, Nathan behind her holding take out bags from a Chinese restaurant.  “We got Chef Ming’s,” Victoria told her as Nathan placed the bags on their small kitchen table.  “Got you Kung Pao Chicken.”

“I’m not hungry,” Max said.  “But thanks.”

“What’s the matter, Maxipad?” Nathan asked. 

Max rolled her eyes.  “None of your business, Prescott.”

“She’s upset because her girlfriend hasn’t answered her texts for two days,” Victoria said as she unpacked the food, opening the containers on the table.

“She’s not my…”

“She not your girlfriend,” Nathan and Victoria said in unison.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Nathan said.  “Whatever she is or isn’t, I don’t care unless she can hook me up with Rachel Amber.”

Max turned to look at Nathan, then to Victoria, who rolled her eyes.  “Fine, you hook up with Rachel Amber so long as I can hook up with Channing Tatum.”

Nathan shrugged, digging a piece of Moo Shu Pork out of the carton with his fingers then popping it onto his mouth.  “I doubt his wife would be down with that.  At least Rachel’s accessible, Max is friends with her.”

“I’m not friends with her.  I’ve never even spoken to her.”  Max got off the couch and walked to the table, Nathan offered her the carton he was eating out of and she shook her head.  “I’m certainly not setting you two up so you can cheat on my best friend with her.”

“It’s not cheating.  She’s my hall pass.”

“And I’m sure she’d be honored to know that but it’s not happening.  At least I’m not going to be part of it.” 

“You’re not her type anyway,” Victoria told him.  “She used to date Chloe, remember?”

“No, she used to date that model dude, Bryan Thomas,” Nathan said.

“Could have just been for publicity, you know.”

“She likes both,” Max told them.  Victoria raised her eyebrows in surprise at her, Max shrugged.  “What? I read.”

Victoria tossed Max a fortune cookie as Nathan opened his and raised his eyebrows.  “A new love will come your way soon,” he read.

Victoria grabbed the slip of paper out of his hands, trading it with the one Max held.  Max crumpled it up and threw it at her roommate.

“What?” Victoria asked, swatting the tiny ball of paper away.  “You need all the help you can get.”

“I don’t need help.  I’m fine.”  She took her phone out of her pocket, glancing at it quickly before putting it back.

“What was that?”

“What?”

“Don’t what me,” Victoria said, putting her hands on her hips.  “You checked your phone. You’re waiting for her to text you.”

“I’m seeing if I missed a call from Jefferson.”

“Oh please, that toolbag would call you until your battery died if you didn’t answer immediately.” Victoria walked over to Max and put her arm around her sympathetically.    “We’ll find you a new girl.  We’ll both help.”

Max shrugged her off.  “I’m fine,” she said again.  “I don’t need to find a girl and I certainly don’t need your help to do it.”

“Well you can’t just sit around staring at your phone all day.  It’s pathetic, I can’t watch it anymore.”

“If only you had a boyfriend with his own apartment so you wouldn’t have to be here.”  She looked at Nathan, who was still eating directly from the carton.  “Oh wait, you do!”

Victoria crossed her arms.  “You realize if I moved in with him, you’d never be able to pay rent here by yourself, right?”

Nathan choked on a piece of pork.  “Whoa, whoa.  Who’s moving in?”

“No one,” Victoria told him, raising an eyebrow at Max.  “Don’t worry, sweetie, you can keep your bachelor pad.”

 

* * *

 

Max frowned as she walked down the street, looking at her phone as she waited for a notification that never came.  She paused, biting her lip as she sent a simple _what’s up?_ to Chloe.  She sighed when the messaged got marked as read and no reply came.

She put her phone into her bag as she thought back over what she’d said over the last couple of days, if anything she’d said could have turned Chloe off but nothing came to mind.  Shaking her head, she walked to the coffee cart and got into line behind three other people, crossing her arms as she waited for the line to move.

Suddenly a cup of coffee was in front of her, a tattooed arm holding the cup.  She blinked then looked up to see Chloe standing next to her.  “Sorry I didn’t answer your texts,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.  “I wanted to surprise you.”

Max shook her head, staring up at her before she stepped out of the coffee line and hugged her tightly.  “You’re back?  Are you in trouble?  What happened?  Did Rachel actually fire you?”

Chloe hugged her back as best she could hold a cup of coffee in both hands.  “Um… yes, no, nothing, and no,” she said, answering Max’s quick stream of questions.  “Shooting wrapped last night, I skipped the wrap party and caught the redeye.”

“I didn’t know you were that close to finishing.”

Chloe shrugged.  “I wasn’t really paying that close attention.  As long as Rachel stayed hydrated between takes, I was doing my job.”

“You’re back,” Max said.  “Wait, Rachel won’t be mad that you left?”

“I told her I was.  She’s not happy but she’ll live.”  Chloe motioned towards her car.  “Want a ride to work?”

Max glanced back towards where her car was parked then turned back to Chloe.  “Absolutely.”

Chloe walked her to her SUV, opening the passenger door for her.  She got into the drivers’ seat, Max smiled at her.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

Chloe laughed, shrugging her shoulder as she started driving.  “I owe you about four months’ worth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Max isn't dreaming and neither is Chloe. Finally starting to move things forward for them!


	14. Chapter 14

Chloe: _I know you’re at work but I’m trying to pack.  What’s the dress code for the dinner?_  
Max: _I thought we were past the texting part of our relationship._  
Chloe: _You’re working and this is an emergency.  I need to finish packing and I have no idea what I’m supposed to wear for the dinner.  Does your family dress up?_  
Max: _It doesn’t really matter what you wear._  
Chloe: _I don’t wanna look like an asshole._   
Max: _I would leave the “Tr(eat) Your Girlfriend Right” shirt at home.  
_ Chloe: _I’m serious.  I don’t know how to do this family holiday shit, some people dress up.  I don’t know what I’m doing._  
Max: _Okay, okay.  We dress nice-ish, I guess._  
Max: _A button up or sweater or something like that and jeans, you’ll be fine.  
_ Chloe: _Button up.  I can do that._   
Max: _You’re nervous.  That’s so cute.  
_ Chloe: _Shut up.  They do know I’m coming right?  
_ Max: _Of course they know you’re coming._  
Chloe: _Can you come over after work?_  
Max: _Is everything okay?_  
Chloe: _Yeah, everything’s fine, I just wanna talk to you before we leave._

After work, Max drove towards Chloe’s, pulling her car into the huge driveway alongside the SUVs and luxury sportscars.  She glanced back at the cars as she approached the front door, realizing how her dark grey Honda Civic looked extremely out of place next to Rachel’s bright red Porsche 911 Turbo.

The door opened in front of her before she rang the doorbell, she jumped as she realized she was standing face to face with Rachel Amber.  A very annoyed looking Rachel Amber.

“Come in,” she said, walking back into the house, motioning towards the stairs before going into the living room.  “Chloe’s waiting for you.”

Max nodded, considering asking which room was Chloe’s but deciding she’d find it on her own.  She started up the stairs when Rachel said her name.

She was standing back in the entry way, looking at Max with her arms crossed.  “Are you and Chloe like, dating?”

Max shrugged.  “We’re just hanging out.”

Rachel smiled.  “Yeah, I remember what hanging out with Chloe is like.  Can I give you some advice?”

“I guess,” Max said, staying where she was on the steps while Rachel walked over, leaning against the railing.

“You seem like a nice girl.  I don’t want to see you get caught up in her games.”  Rachel looked at her sympathetically.  “She’ll play hot and cold for days then act like everything’s perfectly fine, she pushes people away then clings to them like a lifeline.  Did she tell you what happened with us, why we broke up?”

“It’s not really any of my business.”

“Well, always remember that there are two sides to every story.  Chloe’s great, she really is.   But she can be flaky and cold, and she doesn’t mean to, but she’ll make you feel like you don’t matter to her.  It’s not her fault, she’s just too damaged.”

Max looked at Rachel as she spoke then walked down a couple steps to come closer to her.  “Does any of that excuse cheating on her?”

Rachel’s eyes widened.  “I thought she didn’t tell you.”

Max laughed humorlessly.  “There were enough clues and you just confirmed it for me.”

“I thought you were a photographer, not a detective.”

She shrugged.  “I’m just observant, I guess.  I don’t know much about the situation but from my perspective, maybe being there for her and letting her know she isn’t alone would have been more effective than shattering her heart.”

“You don’t know the situation and you don’t know Chloe, don’t for a second pretend like you do.”

“You’re right, I don’t.  Yet.  But I’m learning.”

“What’s going on?” Chloe asked, appearing at the top of the steps.

Rachel looked at Chloe then back to Max.  “Oh, just a little girl talk.”

“Right.”  Chloe looked at Max then tilted her head down the hall. 

Max nodded and walked up the stairs to Chloe then followed her to her room, glancing around as Chloe closed the door behind them.   The stark white walls juxtaposed against the dark wood grain of her furniture and her dark blue plaid comforter.

“Problem?” Chloe asked.

Max shook her head.  “Just not what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Well… a little messier, honestly.”

Chloe laughed.  “I have been out of the country for four months and Rachel has a maid who comes in twice a week. Normally she leaves my stuff alone but I guess since I’ve been gone, she cleaned up.”  She released a breath.  “So, what were you and Rachel talking about?”

“You, mostly.”

Chloe nodded, looking down as she tossed a shirt into her suitcase.  “All good things, huh?” she asked with a laugh.

“It doesn’t matter what she says.  I can make my own mind up.”  She walked over to her.  “I like you, Chloe.  I honestly don’t care what Rachel Amber or anyone else has to say about it.”

Chloe raised her eyebrows, laughing quickly.  “Oh, you like me, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“You could make me,” Chloe told her, stepping closer to her.

Max cleared her throat and took a step back.  “What did you want me to come over for?”

“I think I just got my answer,” she mumbled, scratching the back of her neck.  “But um… are we going to Seattle as friends or like…”

“What?”

“I don’t know, Max.  You just said you like me.  You tell me what it meant.”

“It meant that I like you,” she muttered with a shrug.  “I like you.  This is like high school.  I don’t know what else you want me to say.  I’m not…” she was cut off by Chloe’s lips on hers.  Max stood frozen where she was until Chloe pulled back.

“Like me like that?” she asked softly.

Max nodded silently, looking up at Chloe, who smiled.   She reached up to put her hand against the back of Chloe’s neck, pulling her back to kiss her again.


	15. Chapter 15

Max looked back as the car that had dropped her and Chloe off in front of her parents’ house.  “You okay?” she asked, looking at Chloe.

Chloe released a breath.  “Peachy.  I forgot all my parent talk.”

“Just relax.”  She leaned up to kiss her cheek quickly.  “You’ll be fine, okay?”

“No fires and earthquakes,” she muttered to herself as they walked towards the front door.

Max unlocked the front door, closing it behind them.  “Mom, Dad, we’re here,” she called.

Max’s parents both rushed into the entry.  Her father hugged her, picking her up and spinning her around.  “There’s my LA girl,” he said.

“Okay, okay.  Put me down.”  Max shook her head as her feet hit the floor again.   “This is my…” she started, stopping herself as she looked up at Chloe, realizing they hadn’t yet discussed calling each other girlfriend.  “Chloe,” she said.  “This is Chloe.  And this is Ryan and Vanessa,” she said, motioning to her parents.

“Of course this is Chloe,” Vanessa said, stepping forward to shake Chloe’s hand.  “We’ve heard so much about you.”

Max’s eyes widened.  “Mom!”

Ryan cleared his throat.  “What she means is we’ve heard absolutely nothing about you.  Chloe, is it?”

“Please stop,” Max muttered.

“So tell me, how’s Los Angeles?” Vanessa asked.

“Totally not on fire,” Chloe blurted.

“Wow, I’m exhausted,” Max said loudly.  “We’re gonna go upstairs, unpack and rest.”

Ryan nodded.  “Make sure you show Chloe how nice the guest bedroom is,” he said as the girls walked upstairs.

Max turned around to shake her head at him.  “My room’s the second one on the left,” she told Chloe once they were out of earshot of her parents.

“Totally not on fire,” Chloe said again.  “Totally not on fire.  What the hell is wrong with me?”

Max opened the door to her old bedroom and walked in, tossing her bag onto the bed.

Chloe didn’t follow her, standing in the hallway.  “What about the guest room?”

“We’ll get there.”  She sat on the bed, looking at Chloe.  “Listen, I’m sorry about that… downstairs.”

“Relax, they’re parents.  They’re supposed to be embarrassing.”  She looked around Max’s old room, pausing near the record player on a small table near the wall.  “The girl who still shoots with Polaroid has a record player.  Why am I not surprised?”

“Yeah, yeah.  Shut up.”  Max shook her head. “I mean that um… the way I introduced you.  I wasn’t… we never talked about the girlfriend thing.”

“Is that why you called me your Chloe?” she teased, moving to sit on the bed next to Max.

“I wasn’t… I don’t think you’re my girlfriend.  I know that we’re not just cause…”

“Max.”

“We kissed a couple of times,” she continued as if Chloe hadn’t spoken.   “I know that doesn’t mean we’re dating.  I mean, I’m not twelve.”

Chloe laughed.  “Max,” she tried again.

“Sometimes it feels like we we’re… but I know we’re not. I know…” she was silenced by Chloe’s lips on hers.  When she pulled away, Max blinked.  “Okay, I think we should probably draw some lines.  Casual kissing, I don’t think…” she was cut off once more when Chloe kissed her again, this time placing a hand against her cheek.

“Nothing about what we’re doing is casual,” Chloe whispered.

 

* * *

 

 

Chloe lifted her head with a soft groan as she woke up, freezing when she felt the weight of another person half on top of her.  She smiled when she saw the mess of brown hair as Max slept against her shoulder, still wearing the jeans and hoodies they’d been dressed in when they arrived in Seattle.  She glanced around Max’s old bedroom, noticing that it was dark outside.  She shifted to sit up but Max whimpered, tightening her arm around her

“Max, we fell asleep.”

“Mmm… huh?” she mumbled back, not opening her eyes.

Chloe laughed softly, kissing the side of her head.  “We have to get up.”

“No,” she whined.

“Come on, I’m pretty sure your dad doesn’t want us sleeping in the same room.”

Max opened her eyes and looked at Chloe but didn’t move, keeping her pinned to the bed.   “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Chloe turned her head to look at the open door.  “I think he might know.”

“And he didn’t wake us up and drag you out of here.” She shrugged and snuggled back against Chloe’s side.

Chloe put her arm around Max.  “Well, you did want to fall asleep together not on FaceTime.”

“Shut up.”  She lifted her head to kiss her quickly before laying back down.  “Go back to sleep.”

“But we’re still dressed,” she whispered.

“I don’t wanna move.”

Chloe smiled, kissing Max’s hair quickly.  “Me either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured 14 chapters was long enough to wait for some pricefield fluff, so happy whatever seasonal holiday you celebrate!
> 
> Also, I may or may not be writing a scene for a future chapter that may or may not require a rating change. So I just wanted to ask you guys your opinions. I have a feeling I might already know the answer but I still wanted to ask/give some warning.


	16. Chapter 16

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” Max’s mother said as Chloe walked into the kitchen as the family worked on preparing their Thanksgiving meal.

“Sorry,” Chloe muttered, rubbing the back of her neck.  “I didn’t know I was supposed to get up early.  Is there anything you want me to do?”

Vanessa waved the wooden spoon she held dismissively.  “Please, you’re our guest.  We want you to enjoy your vacation.”

Chloe hovered in the corner of the kitchen and looked at Max, who was still wearing her pajamas and fighting with her father over putting salt in the gravy.  Vanessa clicked her tongue at them and walked over to them, taking the salt shaker from her husband’s hands.

“Honestly, you two,” she said with a sigh.  “Every year.”

“Because Dad doesn’t have any taste buds.”

Chloe smiled at them as they bickered back and forth before she slowly turned and walked out the kitchen, wandering into the living room and leaning against the back of the couch as she watched the parade on the television.

“Coffee?” Max asked, appearing beside her with a mug of coffee.  Chloe shook her head, not looking away from the TV.  “What’s wrong?” she asked softly, putting one arm around her, balancing the cup on the back of the couch.

Chloe shook her head, sniffling quickly.  “Nothing.  Just… you and your dad, you guys sound like me and my dad.  One time we were making breakfast, trying to make these pancakes my mom made, and we were fighting about how many eggs to put in the batter and how one of pancakes I made was too small so then he made one that was the size of his head.”

“It’s good that you remember little things like that about him.”

“I remember everything about that day,” she muttered.

“Oh… Chloe.”  She squeezed her arm around her tighter, leaning against her arm.  “He sounds awesome.”

“You woulda liked him.”  She sighed, rubbing her forehead.   “Sorry, I’m not trying to be a drag.”

Max shook her head, rubbing her back softly.   “Are you gonna be okay?  I don’t want you to…”

“Stop.  I’ll be fine.”  She kissed the side of Max’s head quickly, taking the cup of coffee out of her hand.

Max smiled as Chloe sipped at the coffee, she took her hand, tugging at it to bring her around to the front of the couch before she sat.  “Watch the parade with me.”

Chloe smiled, sitting down on the couch.  As she put her arm around Max, she took the coffee out of her hand and took a sip.  “I thought you got that for me.”

“Why can’t we share?”

“You want to share knowing how I drink coffee?”  She took the cup back and took a drink then handed it back to Max.  “You’re gonna be refilling it.”

Max smiled behind the cup as she took a drink.  “Deal.  Quiet, Snoopy’s coming.”

Chloe laughed as Max handed the cup back to her, watching the television as the balloon moved through Manhattan.

 

* * *

 

 

Chloe sat next to Max at the dining table as her parents took their seats.  Ryan cleared his throat, looking at Chloe.   “We go around the table and say what we’re thankful for,” he told her.  “Since you’re our guest, would you like to go first?”

Chloe shifted in her seat.  “Well, there’s so much… uh, the photographer I hit that’s suing my boss.  That was kinda awesome.”  She cleared her throat when the Caulfields all fell silent, Max nudged Chloe with her elbow. “Really, um… I’m thankful for Max’s boss.”

Max turned her head to look at her, looking confused until Chloe took her hand underneath the table, giving it a quick squeeze.

“Because if it wasn’t for Jefferson doing a photoshoot with Rachel, we never would’ve met.”

Max shook her head at Chloe then smiled and kissed her quickly, not caring that her parents were sitting feet away from them.  “Dumb luck,” she whispered.

“Well, okay then,” Ryan muttered.  “Max?”

“Ditto,” Max said, still looking at Chloe.

 

* * *

 

 

“Chloe?” Max whispered as she opened the door of her parents’ guest bedroom.  “Are you awake?”

Chloe pushed herself up onto her elbows, blinking through the darkness at Max.  “What’s wrong?”

Max stepped into the room, closing the door quietly behind her.  She stood there, her back pressed against the door until Chloe scooted over in the bed, patting the space next to her.  She walked over slowly and sat down, biting her lip as she looked at Chloe.

“What?” she whispered, tucking a strand of Max’s hair behind her ear.

Instead of answering her, Max turned towards her and kissed her.  Slowly at first but then Max’s tongue was edging across Chloe’s bottom lip, looking for access that Chloe quickly granted.  Max shifted over, swinging one leg over top of Chloe’s then pressing against her body as they laid back on the bed.

“Hey,” Chloe muttered against Max’s lips, pulling back slowly, her hands against her hips to keep her where she was.  “Slow down, okay?  Slow.”

Max nodded even though she wasn’t sure slow was something she’d be capable of, after months of having her in a different country with nothing but her own imagination to keep her company at night. Chloe was finally there with her, right underneath her, the thin layers of clothes all that separated them now.  She was acting like a hormonal teenager, climbing on top of her girlfriend in the middle of the night while everyone else slept.  She started laughing at the thought. 

“Did I miss something?” Chloe’s hushed voice asked between Max’s giggles.

“We should be in the backseat of a car.”

Chloe gapped at her, opening and closing her mouth.  “Um… okay.  Uh, if you want a car, we can probably get a car.”

“No, I don’t want to be in a car.  I said we should be in a car.”

“Not following,” she managed to say, her mind foggy.

“We’re acting like horny teenagers.”  She laughed again, her head falling against Chloe’s shoulder.

“Still not seeing the humor here but alright.”

“We’re not teenagers.”  She sat up, tugging at Chloe’s arms until she sat up as well.  “I can’t stop thinking about what you said at dinner, about us meeting.  I mean, we got coffee at the same cart every day, for how long?  Neither of us ever looked up.”

“If I had known what I was looking for, I would have.”

Max smiled and kissed her, Chloe tugged at her hips to pull her closer but she didn’t budge. “I know this is gonna sound really lame, especially since I came in here and did this,” she said, motioning to their current position.  “And I want you, I have since day one.  But um… I want to see you.”

Chloe blinked in confusion until she realized what Max meant.  In the pitch-black room, even as close as they were, they were only shadows.  “I can turn on a light,” she offered.

Max shook her head.  “I don’t want to do this acting like horny teenagers.”

“Well, the teenager part is wrong, at least.”

Max shoved Chloe’s shoulder playfully before kissing her again.  “We’ve waited four months, right? What’s another few days?”

Chloe groaned, nodding her head.  “Do me a favor and get off of me?”

Max giggled again as she slid off of Chloe’s lap and laid down against the pillow as Chloe fell back against her own.  “Night.” She kissed Chloe’s cheek quickly.  “Happy Thanksgiving.”

She laughed, turning her head to kiss her lips.  “Night, Max.  Happy Thanksgiving.”


	17. Chapter 17

Max woke up with Chloe’s arm around her waist, her body pressed close to her back.  She turned her head to see her sleeping soundly behind her then carefully lifted her arm to slip out of bed, placing it back on the bed slowly.  Chloe whined and turned her face into the pillow.

Max smiled at her then quickly left the room, rushing down the hall to her bedroom and grabbed her camera before going back to the guest room, where Chloe was still fast asleep. The sun rising outside the window, partially shrouded by clouds, provided just enough light in the room.  She stood at the foot of the bed and lifted her Polaroid to look at Chloe through the viewfinder and took a picture.

Chloe let out a groan at the sound of the camera developing the picture, lifting her head off the pillow a bit before she fell back against it.  “What happened?” she mumbled.

Max laughed, walking back to the side of the bed as she shook the picture out, lifting one knee onto the bed.  “You looked so cute I couldn’t help it.”

Rolling onto her back, Chloe reached for the picture in Max’s hand.   “At least I know you’re not gonna post it online,” she said sleepily.  “Come back to bed.”

“No, you need to get up.”

“Why?” she whined, dragging the word out.

“Because we have stuff to do.”  She lifted her other leg onto the bed so she was kneeling next to Chloe.  “We need to go to the Space Needle and to Bainbridge Island and...”

“You really want to do all that touristy crap?”

“Well, you are a tourist.”

“You’re not.  You lived here your whole life, do you really wanna go to the Space Needle?”

She sighed.  “I just want to do something fun instead of sitting in the house all the time.”

Chloe sat up slowly, biting her lip. “There is something I’ve been thinking about but it’s stupid,” she said, shaking her head dismissively.

“What is it?”

“It’s… we can’t do it, so I don’t even know why I brought it up.”

“We might be able to do it,” Max told her.  “Just tell me.”

“Well, it’s not exactly fun and it’s like a five hour drive but being with your parents the last couple days made me really start missing my dad more and thinking about my mom and… a five hour drive is a lot better than fifteen, getting a flight there isn't the easiest thing.”

“You want to go to Arcadia Bay?”

“I was thinking, you know, we could leave in the morning and spend a couple hours there.”  She shrugged.  “Like I said, it’s stupid.”

Max looked at her watch.  “Get dressed.”

“What?”

“Get dressed,” Max said again, getting off the bed.  “If we leave now, we’ll be there by three o’clock.”

Chloe shook her head.  “No, we don’t need to.  You should spend time with your folks.”

“We were going to be out all day today anyway.  What’s the difference where we go?”  She smiled, kissing Chloe quickly.  “I’ll ask my dad if we can borrow his car.”

“Max, wait,” Chloe said as she started to leave the room, shaking her head.  “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Max looked at her and walked back to her.  “We don’t have to, obviously, it’s your call but you wouldn’t have brought it up if you didn’t want to go, right?”

“I just haven’t been there in a while.”

“I figured.  Tell me what you want to do.”

Chloe was silent for a moment before she exhaled deeply.  “Go get dressed and tell your dad I’ll fill his tank when we get back.”

Max kissed her once more, squeezing her hand before she left to get dressed.  Chloe watched her leave, running her hands through her hair after Max closed the door behind her.  She fell back against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

“What the hell are you doing, Price?” she said to herself.  She laid there for a long moment before she finally got up and started to get dressed.

 

* * *

 

Chloe sat in the driver seat of Max’s father’s car, looking through the window towards her father’s grave at the cemetery in Arcadia Bay.  Max sat next to her, holding her hand tightly on the center console. 

“When was the last time you were here?” Max asked softly.

“The day he was buried,” Chloe muttered.

“Do you want to go back to Seattle?” she asked when Chloe didn't move to get out of the car.

She shook her head.  “We drove all the way out here.”

“And you hardly said two words since we crossed the state line.”  She released Chloe’s hand, moving her hand to her shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze.  “It’s your call.”

Chloe nodded, sitting where she was a moment longer before she opened the door and stepped out, walking up the small hill towards William’s grave.  Max stayed in the car, watching through the window as Chloe put her hands into her jacket pockets before she stopped in front of a stone.

Chloe knelt down in the grass in front of the headstone, touching the fresh flowers in the vase on the base of the stone then tracing the engraved words beneath his name: _father, husband, brother, friend_.  She turned, noticing Max was still in the car and stood, motioning for her to come over.

Max opened the car door and slowly walked up the hill, pausing several feet from Chloe.  “Are you sure?”

Chloe nodded, holding her hand out.  Max closed the distance between them, taking Chloe’s hand as she stood next to her, looking at the stone.

She wasn’t sure how long they stood there before Chloe finally moved, squeezing her hand and drawing in a shaking breath before she nodded.  “Come on,” she said, releasing Max’s hand to go back to the car.

Max blinked after her and quickly followed her.  “Are you okay?” she asked after they got back into the car.

Chloe nodded slowly, gripping the steering wheel then putting her forehead against the wheel, hitting it twice with the palm of her hand.  Max bit her lip, not sure if she should try to touch Chloe or not, choosing finally to put her hand on the center console for Chloe to take when she was ready.

“Sorry,” Chloe finally said, leaning back against the seat.  She looked down at Max’s hand, releasing a breath as she took it.

Max shook her head.  “Don’t apologize.  Are you okay?” she asked again.

Sniffling quickly, Chloe nodded.  “I didn’t think… I don’t know what I thought but…”

“Maybe you’re trying to do too much too quick.  Just take a deep breath, okay?  We’re not doing anything you don’t want to.”

“Well, we’ve gone this far.   Might as well give you the whole shitty Chloe Price life tour,” she said as she drove the car out of the cemetery.  “We’ll start with Blackwell, my own personal hell.”

“Wait, Blackwell?” Max asked.  “As in Blackwell Academy?  You went to Blackwell Academy?”

Chloe laughed humorlessly.  “Sometimes. Why?”

“I applied to Blackwell.  I didn’t get in.”  Max shook her head.  “I knew it was in Arcadia Bay but I didn’t put it together that it’s the same one you’re from.”

“There’s only one Arcadia Bay, that’s all the world needs.  They didn’t accept you?  Really?  Just proves they’re all idiots there.”

“What if we had gone to high school together?” Max asked then shook her head.  “You would have never noticed me anyway.”

“We wouldn’t have for long.  I got expelled but if we did, I would have noticed you.”

“You were with Rachel,” Max mumbled.

Chloe shook her head.  “If we went at the same time, I probably would’ve met you before I met Rachel.”  She released a breath.  “Things would’ve been a lot different.”

Max nodded.  “We don’t need to go to Blackwell.  We can just drive around awhile.”

“It’s a small town, there’s not much driving around to do and we basically have to pass it.” 

She went as fast as she could past the Blackwell campus, slowing the car down as she passed the Two Whales Diner, trying to see if she could spot her mother through the window before she turned back to the road and bringing the car back to normal speed.

She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel as she turned towards her old house, down the familiar street she'd grown up on before pulling into the driveway next to a blue muscle car.  “Asshole never painted,” she muttered, the house in the same state of disrepair it was in when she’d moved out, with faded blue paint and the front gutter falling off.  She got out of the car slowly, looking up at her bedroom window.

“Can I help you?” a gruff voice asked as the front door of the house opened.  Chloe looked at her stepfather, opening her mouth then closing it again, her breath quickening.  “I’ll be damned,” he said, looking at her.

“David, what is it?” a voice from inside the house called.  He stepped back, pushing the door open a bit more as Joyce walked out.  The towel she held fell out of her hands, staring at her daughter as if she were seeing a ghost.  “Chloe,” she gasped softly.  “Oh, Chloe.”  She ran down the front steps of the house to where Chloe stood, hugging her tightly.

Chloe swayed a bit to steady herself, her arms at her sides.  She finally hugged her mother back, sniffling a bit against her shoulder.  Joyce moved back to look at her, reaching up to wipe tears away from Chloe’s cheeks.  “It’s okay, baby,” she said softly.  “You’re home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm dragging out the trip to Arcadia Bay because I just really love Joyce. Also, slightly traumatized Chloe gets hard to write for too long.


	18. Chapter 18

Chloe felt like more of a stranger in her own home than she did at Max’s parents’ house, her mother was excited to see her but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was intruding on a life she no longer belonged in.  She sat in the same seat at the dining room table that she’d sat in for the first eighteen years of her life, her coat hung over the back of the chair while Joyce got coffee for her and Max.   David sat across from her staring at her silently, suspiciously.

“Someone was at Dad’s grave,” Chloe said as her mother placed mugs on the table in front of the two girls.  “There were flowers.”

“We stopped by on Thanksgiving. We go there twice a month,” David told her, his arms crossed and eyes narrow as he continued looking at his stepdaughter.  “Least we can do is pay our respects to the man, more than I can say for some people.”

Chloe nodded, looking down at the cup in front of her.  “I was a kid,” she said, her voice small, still looking down.

“Well, you certainly aren’t anymore, are you?” he responded.  “You weren’t a kid when you ran outta here and jumped in that damned truck, took off for Los Angeles.  You’re not a kid but when was the last time you called your mother, sent a letter, anything?”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered.

Max looked at her, realizing how exhausted Chloe looked, noticing the dark circles under her eyes she hadn’t seen before, her fingers clutching the edge of the sleeves of the flannel she wore.  She wasn’t sure if Chloe was about to fall asleep on her mother’s dining room table or possibly start crying.

“Sorry?”  He chuckled humorlessly, shaking his head.  “Sorry doesn’t take away your mother crying herself to sleep for months.”

“David,” Joyce said in a warning tone from behind him, digging a large photo album out of the bookcase.

“Doesn’t fix all the damage you caused,” he continued.  “Sorry doesn’t take away the last eight years.”

“Seven,” Chloe mumbled, even though it was just a couple months until it would have been eight years.

“Seven,” he repeated.  He shook his head again.  “You’re still the same selfish little…”

“David!” Joyce snapped.  “Are you trying to push my daughter out that door for the next seven years?  Both of you, please, enough of this.”

“Chloe didn’t do anything,” Max interjected.

Chloe shook her head, looking exhausted.  “Don’t,” she whispered.

“No.” Max brushed Chloe away when she tried to put a hand on her arm to stop her, looking across the table at David.  “She hardly said anything and you’re making her feel like crap.  There’s nothing she can do about what’s already happened.”

“I think everyone needs to just take a breath,” Joyce said, placing the photo album on the table.  “We’re all a little overwhelmed…”

“Doesn’t even call to say she’s coming,” David grumbled.

“Enough,” Joyce told him.   She shook her head, reaching across the table towards Chloe, she took her mother’s hand, squeezing it quickly.  “You’re here now, that’s the important thing.”  She opened the album, flipping through the pages.  “Look, here’s my favorite one of you and your father.”  Chloe nodded but didn’t move as Max got up to stand next to Joyce to look at the picture.   Joyce touched the picture of her late husband fondly.  “I used to tell you this all the time, but you have his smile.”

Max looked at the picture then to Chloe.  “You do.”

Chloe managed a tiny smile and nodded again.  “I’m gonna go say hi to Bongo,” she mumbled, standing up and grabbing her jacket, pulling it on as she walked towards the back door.

Max frowned, watching Chloe walk through the sliding glass door.  “Bongo?” she asked, looking at Joyce.

“Her cat.  He was hit by a car not too long before William…” Joyce trailed off, clearing her throat as she flipped to another page in the book, where there was a picture of Chloe holding a kitten. 

Max looked out through the window again, Chloe was standing near the corner of the yard, her back to the house but she was able to see the cigarette in her mouth.  Max blinked when she heard Joyce say her name.

“I don’t know how you did it.”  Joyce was halfway through her sentence when Max started listening.  “Try to get her to visit more.”

“Oh.” Max blinked. “Um… well, it was Chloe’s idea to come here.  I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Seven years and I haven’t heard from her at all.  Now all of a sudden she’s at my front door.”

“I don’t know if…”

Joyce put her hand on Max’s arm.  “Just try to get her to visit sometimes, okay?”

Before Max had a chance to respond, Chloe spoke, now standing behind them.  “Or you could come to LA.”

David snorted, his arms crossed as he leaned back against the couch.  “We could also go to the moon.”

“I’ll pay for the plane tickets and put you up in a hotel, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Chloe told him.

“So you make some money and suddenly we’re a charity case?”

Chloe rolled her eyes.  “I’m just trying to do something nice, okay?  Never mind.”

Joyce shook her head.  “Sweetie, we’d love to visit you, but you know how it is at the diner.  Vacation might not be in the cards.”

“You never take vacation time,” Chloe said. “You guys never even had a honeymoon.”

“We don’t need a handout,” David grunted.

Chloe didn’t look at David, keeping her eyes on her mother. “If you want to, it’s an open invitation.”  She shrugged, looking at Max, who was sitting silently at the table.  “We should probably get going.”

“We don’t have to,” Max said, standing slowly.  “My dad won’t need his car until morning.”

“I don’t wanna be driving all night.”  Chloe wrote her phone number on a slip of paper from the pad on the kitchen counter and handed it to her mother.  “If you ever want to come to California,” she mumbled.

Joyce hugged Chloe tightly, she put one arm around her mother.  “I’ll call you, okay?” she said softly.

Chloe nodded silently, holding her hand out for Max, who quickly went to her side to take it.  “It was nice meeting you,” Max said as Chloe pulled her towards the door.  She glanced back quickly as she closed the door, looking at Joyce as she walked to David, arms crossed and looking angry.

Chloe let go of Max’s hand to get into the car, Max quickly moved around to get into the other side.  “Are you okay to drive?” she asked softly, sitting in the passenger seat.

Chloe nodded once, but didn’t start the car for a moment, staring back at her old house.  She finally shook her head and started the car, then backed out of the driveway.

 

* * *

 

 

Max fell asleep halfway back to Seattle, her head pressed against the cool window.   Chloe laughed softly, looking at her as she parked in the Caulfield’s driveway.  “Hey,” she said softly, tucking Max’s hair behind her ear.  “Hey, wake up.  We’re here.”

Max peeled her face away from the window slowly, rubbing her freezing cheek.  “Already?”

“You’ve been out for about three hours.”

Max frowned, looking at the house.  “Oh,” she managed to say.  She looked at the time on the car’s dash, figuring her parents would be asleep.  She cleared her throat then opened her door and got out of the car.

Chloe put her arm around her as they walked to the front door then held her hand as they walked up the stairs of the darkened house.  “Good night,” she said once they got to Max’s bedroom, leaning forward to kiss her but she moved.

“Stay,” she whispered, opening the bedroom door.   Chloe followed her into the room, not caring about going to the guest room to get her pajamas.  “So are you okay?”

Chloe nodded then shook her head then shrugged.  “I told you it was stupid to go there.”

“It wasn’t stupid.  Sorry, but your step-father’s kind of an asshole.”

Chloe let out a quick chuckle.  “There’s a reason me and Rachel call him the step-douche.”

“What can I do?  This isn’t a kiss it better situation, is it?”

She shrugged, putting a hand against Max’s hip.  “Worth a shot.”

Max smiled, sliding her arms around Chloe’s shoulders then rising onto her tip-toes to kiss her.  Chloe’s fingers tightened around her hips, drawing her closer.  Max slid her hands under Chloe’s jacket, pushing it off her shoulders before removing her own.

Max’s hands moved down Chloe’s torso, tugging at the unbuttoned flannel shirt she wore.  Chloe smiled against Max’s lips.  “Are you trying to take my clothes off?” she whispered.

Max stepped back quickly, her hands falling to her sides.  “Sorry,” she stammered.  “I’m… I was…”

Chloe chuckled.  “I never said it was problem.  I was just wondering.  Cause if you are then uh…” She kissed her again, pulling at the zipper of her hoodie.  Max nodded her head and pushed Chloe’s shirt off before Chloe lifted her off the floor, pulling her leg around her waist and carried her over to the bed.

Max grasped the back of Chloe’s t-shirt as she laid her down, pulling at it and tugging a bit of her hair.  “Ow, ow, easy.  Easy,” she laughed, taking her shirt off.  “Seriously, you just need to ask.”

“Sorry,” Max whispered. “I got a little carried away.”

“Please never apologize for trying to take my shirt off.”

“But I hurt you.”

Chloe laughed, shaking her head.  “Stop talking.”

“What?  Am I not supposed to respond when you say something to me?”

“Well, I’m on top of you basically half naked so you tell me if you wanna talk.”

Max licked her lips.  “I think you should get more naked,” she whispered, reaching for Chloe’s belt.

“Nuh-uh,” Chloe muttered, shaking her head, grasping Max’s wrists to pull them away from her belt.   When Max looked confused, Chloe pulled her to sit up then tugged her shirt off.

Biting down on her lip, Max reached behind her to unclasp her bra then froze, suddenly very aware that Chloe was about to see her naked and remembering that she had seen Rachel Amber naked.  Her breath quickened, an annoying voice in the back of her mind telling her she’d never be able to compare to Rachel.  She was Chloe’s first love, she’d never come close.  She had to fight the urge to dive off the bed to grab her shirt.

“Hey.”   She heard Chloe’s voice through the ringing in her ears.  “What’s wrong?” She shook her head, trying to blink away the bright spots that clouded her vision, but it only got worse.  “Max?  Shit, Max!  What happened?  What did I do?”

“Chloe,” she whimpered.

“I’m here, baby.”  Chloe’s arms came around her, holding her tight.  “I’m right here.  I got you.  You’re okay.  Talk to me.”

Max’s breathing eventually returned to normal and she shifted to look at Chloe.  “Sorry,” she muttered.

“It’s okay.  What’s wrong?”

Max didn’t speak for a moment, Chloe took her hand, moving her thumb across her knuckles.  “It’s… Rachel.”

“Rachel?”

“I just… you don’t talk about her, which is fine, but the one time we did, you didn’t seem if you were really sure you were over her.”

Chloe gaped at her, trying to remember that conversation.  “That was months ago,” she finally said.

“But do you still… are you still…” she stammered, unable to get the sentence out.

“No,” she said instantly.  “If I had feelings for Rachel, I wouldn’t be with you.  I wouldn’t do that to you, okay?”  She lifted one hand onto her cheek.  “Okay?”

Max nodded, pressing her forehead against Chloe’s.  “Okay,” she whispered.  They sat like that for several moments before Max released a shuttered breath.  “Sorry, I keep doing this.”

“What?”

“Starting things then overthinking something and stopping.”

“It’s okay,” Chloe assured her, Max gave her a look.  “It is.  It’s okay.  Look, you have every right to know if I’m still hung up on my ex.  The situation is weird, trust me, I know.   Do I wish you brought this up while our shirts were still on?” She shrugged, smirking.  “Yeah, but what can you do?”

“Stop,” Max said through a choking sob.

“Okay, not a good time for jokes.”  She tucked Max’s hair behind her ears.  “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

“You don’t need to say that.”

“I’m not just saying it.”  She kissed her forehead.  “You are.”  She kissed her softly then shifted to lay down.  “It’s been a long day, come on.”  She opened her arm, waiting for Max.

She slowly laid down, facing Chloe, finally relaxing when Chloe’s arm wrapped around her waist.  “Sorry I freaked out I just... I’m kind of crazy about you,” she whispered.

Chloe smiled.  “I’m really crazy about you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last part was so hard to write but it was a thing that had to happen before Max and Chloe could really more forward. I wrote a few different endings, this was the happy one.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating changed! This chapter is pretty much all smut... Happy New Year?

When Max woke up, the first thing she became aware of was Chloe’s hand, warm and soft against her back.  She opened her eyes, smiling when she looked at Chloe, asleep with her lips slightly parted, she couldn’t stop herself from closing the small space between them and kissing her.

“Your morning breath is gross,” Chloe whispered, not opening her eyes.

“Yours isn’t much better.”  Max pressed her hand into Chloe’s bare ribcage, pushing herself out of her arms.  She rolled over, swinging her legs off the bed and stood up.

“Where’re you going?” Chloe asked sleepily, watching Max retrieve her shirt from the floor and slipping it on.

“To brush my teeth since my breath is so gross.”

The door snapped shut as Chloe pushed herself up onto her elbows, Max walked down the hall to the bathroom, grabbing her toothbrush and applying toothpaste.  A moment later, Chloe walked into the bathroom, still wearing only her bra and the jeans she’d slept it, reaching over Max’s shoulder to get her own brush.

“Don’t you dare drip on me,” Max said as Chloe started brushing her teeth, standing over her.

Chloe picked up a hand towel from the stand next to the sink and placed it over Max’s head then propped her elbow on her shoulder.  “Your parents went back to work today, right?” she asked, toothbrush in her mouth, looking at Max through the mirror.

Max nodded then rinsed her mouth and spit into the sink.  She stood where she was, waiting for Chloe to finish.  “What do you feel like doing?” she asked, pulling the towel off her head.

“Whatever you want.”

Max bit her lip, looking in the mirror at Chloe.  “You.”  When Chloe looked confused, Max turned around to face her, her fingers moving across the skin on her stomach before her arms wrapped around her waist.  “I want you,” she said, pushing herself up on her tip-toes to kiss her.

“Are you sure?”

She inhaled quickly then nodded.  “It’s just you and me, right?”

Chloe placed one hand against Max’s cheek.  “You and me.  No one else.”

“And now that we’re both minty fresh,” she whispered, stepping back then taking Chloe’s hand and tugging at it as she stepped into the hallway.

Chloe laughed as she followed her, tugging on her hand to press her against the wall, kissing her again.  Her hand moved under Max’s shirt but she pulled away dragging Chloe the rest of the way to her bedroom. 

Snapping the door shut behind her, Max pulled Chloe towards her, leaning back against the door as she unbuttoned and unzipped Chloe’s pants.  “You’re doing it again,” Chloe gasped softly.  Before Max had a chance to speak, she pulled at her shirt, tugging it off.

“You already had your shirt off, doesn’t count,” Max said, continuing her work on Chloe’s jeans, managing to get them open enough to slide them off her hips.

Chloe kicked them off quickly.  “Bed,” she gasped.  “Now.”

They moved quickly to the bed, Chloe laid Max down underneath her, kissing her neck as her hands moved down her body to the waist of her pants, unbuttoning and unzipping them before pulling them down.  For a second, Max thought about the mismatched underwear she had on, a plain white bra and Peptobismol-pink panties, remembering Victoria trying to pack sexy lingerie for her.

But the thought left just as quickly, because Chloe started kissing her stomach, her hands moving against her sides.  Max forgot everything, focusing only on the feeling of Chloe’s lips and hands on her.  She moved up her body, kissing her neck again.  “You sure?” she heard her whisper against her ear.

Max nodded, already embarrassingly wet from Chloe’s teasing.  Her mouth opened to give her a verbal answer but Chloe’s lips were on her neck again, her teeth against Max’s pulse point.  “Chloe, please,” she finally managed to gasp.

She felt Chloe smile against her skin before her hands moved to Max’s back, opening her bra then pulling it away.  Max opened her eyes when she felt Chloe sit up, straddling her.  “God, you’re beautiful,” she muttered before Max had a chance to overthink the action.

Max pushed herself up to kiss Chloe, her hands now moving to Chloe’s back to unhook her bra, popping it open and biting down on her lip as it fell away.  Chloe leaned forward again, pressing hot, wet kisses against Max’s chest, scraping her teeth against one hardened nipple as her hand dropped, her fingers moving under the thin elastic band of her panties.

Her hips rose off the bed when she felt the ghost of two fingers brushing against her, wetting her fingers.   Max tried to silently demand more, but Chloe seemed to be committed to teasing her to the brink of insanity, two fingers circling her clit while barely touching her.

“Chloe,” she gasped.  “Please.  Touch me.”

Chloe removed her hand from Max’s underwear, making her whimper.  “I’m gonna do more than touch you,” she whispered, placing a soft kiss against Max’s ear.  She hooked her fingers into her panties, this time tugging down, slowly moving them down Max’s legs, finally tossing them away.  Chloe looked up as she pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee, watching Max’s chest heave as she tried to control her breathing.  She kissed her way up her thigh, then paused, looking up at Max, who nodded her head once then moaned when she felt Chloe’s tongue slide against her.

Her hands gripped the sheets underneath her, writhing as Chloe’s mouth moved against her, she almost flew off the bed when she felt her tease around her entrance with two fingers before slowly pushing into her.   She swore under her breath, her walls tightening around Chloe’s fingers as they thrust into her.

Max closed her eyes, trying to control her breathing, to bring herself back trying to prolong the moment, but the Chloe’s fingers curled up, hitting a spot that ended her.  Her head fell back, trying to catch her breath, opening her eyes to see Chloe moving back up her body.  She turned her head to kiss her, barely able to attach her lips to hers.

Chloe chuckled, brushing Max’s hair away from her face.  “You okay?” she whispered, placing a kiss against her cheek, Max nodded silently.  Even though they hadn’t been awake long, Max looked like she needed a nap so Chloe laid down next to her, after a moment Max moved, rolling on top of her, making her eyes widen.

“I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel,” she whispered breathlessly, reaching down to push down her panties.

Chloe let out a quick chuckle as Max placed a kiss against the side of her mouth, laying back as Max moved down her body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I'm so bad at writing smut. I don't know why I decided to do this but Max and Chloe wanted it. I have no control at this point.


	20. Chapter 20

Chloe dreaded going back to Los Angeles, she’d actually started to like Seattle in the week they’d spent there.  Not so much the city, admittedly she hadn’t seen as much of it as Max wanted to show her, they’d never even made it to the Space Needle.  She liked being able to stay in bed with Max for the last two days, without any worries or responsibilities outside of the bedroom, until they had to get dressed when Max’s mother came home from work and pretend like they’d spent the day on the couch watching movies.

Her parents drove them to the airport, both of her parents catching Max in a choking hug before they went through security.  Her mother hugged Chloe, not as tightly as she hugged Max, while her father shook her hand.  Both made sure she knew she was invited back to their home on Max’s next visit.

“Any interest in joining the mile-high club?” Chloe whispered several minutes into their flight back to Los Angeles. 

“Is that even legal?” Max whispered back, waiting for the flight attendant to pass their row.

Chloe grinned.  “Isn’t that the fun part?”

“I have a feeling you’re already a card-carrying member.”

“Why do you think that?” she asked with a frown.

Max shrugged.  “Rachel’s a lot more adventurous than I am.”

“Don’t do that.  Don’t compare yourself to her.  I like you being you, okay?”  She took her hand over their shared armrest.

“Okay,” Max said, leaning back in her seat, holding Chloe’s hand.  “But did you?”

“Believe it or not, when Rachel was starting out she actually tried to stay away from scandals.  Getting caught having sex on a plane is a scandal.”

Max raised an eyebrow.  “But you want to?  Haven’t you gotten in enough trouble this year?”

“Not with you,” Chloe whispered, kissing Max near her ear.

Max bit her lip, trying to keep her thoughts at bay, but the words burst out before she could stop herself.  “How many people have you… gotten in trouble with?”

“What?” she asked, looking confused.  “What are you…”  She looked at Max, who raised her eyebrows, tilting her head.  “What?  Are you asking for my number?”  Max shrugged one shoulder, Chloe sighed.  “I’m clean, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Max’s mouth fell open.  “If you weren’t, I hope you would have told me before.”

Chloe glanced around quickly, trying to see if anyone was looking at them.  “Can we not have this conversation surrounded by a hundred strangers?” she whispered through clenched teeth.

Max didn’t answer pulling her hand out of Chloe’s, then turning her head away from her to look out the window.

Chloe sighed heavily, crossing her arms.  “I have a past, big deal.  You knew that.  Everybody has a past, Max.”

She didn’t look at her, staring at nothing on the other side of the window.  “It’s not a big deal, I was asking a question.”

“If it wasn’t a big deal, you wouldn’t be pushing it and you’d wait an hour until we get off the plane.”

The airplane suddenly lurched, the cabin shook for several seconds, the fasten seatbelt light came on and the flight attendants started moving down the aisles to check the passengers.  The plane shook again, Max pawed at Chloe, pulling her arm to take her hand.

Chloe frowned, looking at Max as she closed her eyes, leaning her head back as she drew in deep, shaky breaths. “Are you okay?” she asked softly, squeezing her hand.  When Max didn’t answer, she brushed her hair behind her ear with her free hand.  “It’s just a little turbulence, okay?  It happens sometimes.” 

“This is why I drove to Los Angeles when I moved,” Max whined, not opening her eyes even when they flew steadily for several minutes.   “I should have driven.  I should have driven there...”

“It’s over,” Chloe told her when the seatbelt light when off, giving her hand a quick squeeze. 

Max took one more deep breath and slowly opened her eyes.  “The universe doesn’t like it when we fight.”

Chloe laughed lightly.  “Neither do I.”

Max leaned her head against Chloe’s shoulder.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t care about your past.  I’m just happy to be here, with you right now.”  Chloe smiled, kissing the top of Max’s head.  Max looked up, seeing the sign for the bathroom change to unoccupied.  “Let’s do it.”

“What?”

“The mile-high club,” she said, low enough that no one could hear her as she whispered in Chloe’s ear.   “Let’s do it.”

Chloe’s eyebrows went up at Max’s sudden change.  “You sure?”

“Chloe, we almost died…”

“We did not almost die,” she responded, Max raised her eyebrows at her.  “Okay, fine, we possibly could have died, maybe.”

“I don’t want my last memory to be a fight with you.”  She kissed her quickly.  “I’ll go first, you stagger by like five minutes right?”  Chloe’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.  “They talked about doing this in an episode of Friends.”

Chloe laughed, nodding her head.  “Okay, yeah, stagger by five minutes sounds good.”  She laughed as Max crawled over her to get to the aisle, kissing her quickly before she disappeared into the bathroom.  Chloe sat where she was for several minutes before getting up and following Max’s footsteps. 

 

* * *

 

“There’s like three cloudy days a year, one had to be the day we get back from Seattle,” Max grumbled, sitting in the front seat of Chloe’s car as they drove away from the airport.

Chloe frowned, looking through the windshield and shrugged one shoulder.  “You didn’t say anything about not liking planes.”

“What?”

“Before we went, while we were in Seattle, you never mentioned being scared of planes,” Chloe continued.  “You know, if you wanted to drive, I would’ve been fine with that.”

“You’ve been thinking about that for the last hour?”

Chloe glanced at her, a tiny smile playing on her lips.  “Well, that’s not all I was thinking about.  But, yeah, I was thinking about it.”

“I’m not scared of planes,” Max told her.  “I was fine on the way there, right?  When the plane starts shaking, I think a normal human reaction is to be scared.  Unless you’re you, apparently.  I know, you fly a lot but the first time that happened on a flight you were on, you didn’t freak out a little bit?”

Chloe laughed.  “I started crying and didn’t stop until we landed.”

“Aw, my poor baby.”  Max leaned over to kiss her cheek.

“Next time we go to see your folks, we can drive if you want.”

“Next time?” Max asked, smiling at her.

Chloe smiled and shrugged her shoulders, Max tilted her head towards her to kiss her quickly.  “Okay, driving,” she said, kissing Max back quickly.  “I’m driving.”  She laughed, turning back to the road as Max faced forward in her seat again.  “But, yeah, if you want me to.  Are you going back for Christmas or whatever?”

Max shook her head.  “Jefferson’s too busy around Christmas and New Year’s, weddings, parties.”  She shrugged.  “They might come here though, I don’t know yet.”

“Dickhead,” Chloe muttered as she turned into the driveway of her and Rachel’s house.

“I don’t have vacation time anyway.”  She blinked as Chloe parked the car. “I thought you were gonna drop me at my apartment.”

“I’ll drive you to work in the morning,” Chloe told her with a grin.  She got out of the car, pulling their bags out of the backseat. 

They walked to the front door, Max turned to Chloe and kissed her as Chloe pushed the door open.

“Oh, you’re back!”

Max moved away from Chloe when she heard Rachel’s voice, quickly shifting her eyes to the wall when she saw the actress walk towards them wearing a steel-blue silky robe that fell above her mid-thigh.

Chloe cleared her throat, looking a bit annoyed.  “You knew we were coming back today.”

Rachel pushed her hair behind one ear, her robe slipping off one shoulder as she moved.  “Did I?” she asked, glancing pointedly at Max.

“Babe, why don’t you go up to my room,” Chloe said to Max.  “I’ll be up in a second.”

Max nodded, glancing at Rachel before kissing Chloe quickly then went up the stairs, glancing back as Chloe crossed her arms as she turned towards Rachel.

“Babe?” Rachel repeated once Max was out of earshot.  “Well, that’s new.”

Chloe shrugged.  “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I knew _you_ were coming home today,” Rachel said, taking a step closer to Chloe.  “I didn't realize she’d be with you.”

“So is that what this is about?” Chloe asked, motioning to what Rachel was wearing.

Rachel clicked her tongue.  “Wasted effort, I guess.”  She glanced quickly towards the stairs.  “So are you two in love now?” she asked, rolling her eyes at the thought.

Chloe opened her mouth and closed it again before picking up her and Max’s bags.  “I gotta go,” she muttered.

“Oh my god, you love her,” Rachel said as Chloe started towards the stairs.  Chloe froze where she was, not turning back to look at her “Does she love you?” she asked, almost in a mocking tone as Chloe’s head fell.  “Oh, Chloe,” she continued sympathetically.

Chloe rolled her eyes, turning back to Rachel.  “I’m fine, okay?”

“Are you?  Are you going to be okay when she doesn’t love you back?”  Chloe didn’t respond, so Rachel continued.  “Really, it’s been what, a week?  You’re just going to get hurt.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Chloe told her, finally moving up the stairs.  “You never did before.”


	21. Chapter 21

Rachel paused as she walked down the steps, smelling something cooking in the kitchen.  She frowned, because it was rare that Chloe would wake up and make breakfast on a weekday that didn’t involve cereal with a cartoon character on the box.

She turned into the kitchen and saw Max, wearing one of Chloe’s t-shirts as she made eggs and bacon on the stovetop.  “You slept over,” she said, making Max jump.

Max turned to look at Rachel, opening her mouth to apologize and ask if it was okay before she decided she didn’t need Rachel’s permission.  “Yeah,” she finally said.  There was several minutes of silence between the two women as Rachel sat down at the island counter, until Max cleared her throat.  “Um… do you want some?  I can throw a couple more eggs on.”

Rachel scrunched her nose.  “I don’t think so.”

Max nodded as the silence fell between them.  Even though she’d planned to bring Chloe breakfast in bed, she hoped that she would wake up and come downstairs.  “So um… that movie you worked on in Canada, what’s it about?” she asked, unable to think of anything else to talk to her about.

Rachel stared her, seeming slightly offended by Max’s question, as if she was supposed to already know all about the movie, then crossed her arms on the countertop.   “Chloe’s pretty crazy about you.”

Max frowned at the change in subject but then smiled.  “Good.  I’m sort of crazy about her myself.”

“So you’re not mad about what happened in Toronto?”

“Why would I be mad about it?” Max said with a shrug.   “It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but why would I be mad that she hit a photographer?”

“Not about the photographer,” Rachel said, shaking her head, almost smiling.  “This was before any of that.  She didn’t tell you about what happened in her hotel room?”

“No.  Why?”

“Well, we kissed.”  She watched Max’s face go pale, shaking her head before Rachel continued.   “I was having kind of a rough night, I couldn’t sleep so I went to her room to talk.  We kissed and then I left, so nothing else happened.  She didn’t tell you?” She shook her head sympathetically.   “You weren’t really together at the time, were you?”

“Not technically,” Max muttered, not looking at Rachel, feeling a bit sick. 

“Sorry to be the barer of bad news,” Rachel told her.  “You had a right to know though.  Chloe probably never would have told you.”  Max nodded as plated Chloe’s breakfast and poured a cup of coffee for her, putting it into a tray then carrying it silently up the stairs.  Rachel watched her walk away, biting back a grin before she opened the refrigerator to get herself breakfast.

Max pushed open Chloe’s bedroom door and looked at her as she continued sleeping, face down on the bed.  She put the breakfast tray on the bed with a bit more force than she intended, sloshing a bit of coffee out of the mug.

Chloe groaned, lifting her head at the movement and rolled over, smiling at Max.  “Good morning,” she said, stretching out her back.

“I made you breakfast,” Max muttered, not looking at Chloe.

Chloe smiled at the tray of breakfast perched on the bed then looked at Max.  “Looks delicious, baby, but I’d rather eat something else,” she said, reaching for Max’s hand.

Max pulled her hand free and crossed her arms.  “Rachel told me.”

Chloe stared at Max, waiting for her to continue then shook her head when she didn’t.  “Rachel told you… what?  Is this some kind of riddle?”

“About Toronto.”  When Chloe still looked confused, Max rolled her eyes.  “You kissed her, Chloe.”

Chloe’s mouth fell open.  “She told you I kissed her?”

“Maybe I have no right to be angry because we weren’t together but you told me it was over between you two.  You told me it’s been over.”

“It is,” Chloe insisted.  “And you’re allowed to be angry but…”

“So what, was the kiss to make sure there was nothing left?  Am I supposed to be relieved that you didn’t sleep together?”

“I was not going to sleep with her.”

“Well, great,” Max muttered.  “Really eases my mind.”

“Jesus Christ,” Chloe mumbled, running both her hands through her hair.  “Let me talk, okay?  I did not kiss Rachel, Rachel kissed me.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I didn’t kiss her back,” Chloe insisted.  Max’s face didn’t change, giving no clue to if she believed her or not.  “She made a pass at me, she was trying to get back together with me but I kicked her out of the room.”

“She wants you back?” Max asked, her voice small.

“She wants what she can’t have.”  Chloe got out of bed and stood in front of Max.  “You’re the one I want.”

Max smiled.  “Please don’t start singing.”

“We’re okay, right?”

Max nodded slowly, leaning up to kiss Chloe.  “We’re okay.  Sorry I got so crazy there I just… I thought you were keeping it from me and I… I freaked out.”

“I didn’t think there was anything to tell.”  She shrugged.  “You’re cute when you get insecure.”

Max rolled her eyes then smiled.  “Shut up.  Breakfast,” she muttered, pointing to the tray on the bed.

Chloe smiled.  “I already told you, I’d rather eat something else.”

Max laughed as Chloe kissed her, pulling her towards the bed. “But I worked really hard on it,” she muttered as Chloe kissed her neck.

“But we have some making up to do.”

Max let out a low moan when Chloe kissed her again.  “Breakfast can wait.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Look who finally dragged herself home,” Victoria said as Max walked into their apartment with her suitcase she’d brought to Seattle.  Max rolled her eyes as her roommate stood up, hands on her hips.  “And where have you been, young lady?”

“Sorry I didn’t call, Mom,” she mumbled, going to put her clothes away.  “What’s your problem?”

Victoria shrugged.  “I thought you were coming home a couple days ago.”

“I did.  I crashed at Chloe’s,” she said with a shrug, trying to sound nonchalant about it.

Victoria crossed her arms, eyes narrowing at Max then she smiled.  “Oh my god, you had sex!”

She shook her head.  “How could you possibly know that?”

“I was totally joking,” Victoria said, laughing.  “You did? You and Chloe? When?  How?”

“How?” Max repeated.

“I mean, I know how.”  She sighed at sat on the couch, patting the spot next to her.  “Tell me about it.”

Max stared at her.  “No,” she said simply before turning back to her dresser.

“Max, come on.  It’s been forever since we had a girls’ night and talked about relationships.  Mostly because you didn’t have anything to talk about.  Does she know you’ve been in a two year long dry spell?”

Max rolled her eyes.  “Why do you think I want to talk about it?”

Victoria let out an exasperated sigh.  “Come on, I told you all about me and Nathan.”

“Yeah, and I never wanted to hear any of it.”

“Fine,” Victoria chirped.  “Not like I wanted to hear about your vanilla sex anyway.”

Max looked at her, suddenly feeling the need to prove her roommate wrong. “Sex on a plane is vanilla?” she asked casually.

“What?  On the plane?  Seriously?  Look at little Maxi growing up.  How was it?” she asked eagerly.

She shrugged, making a face.  “It was in a tiny bathroom, I’m pretty sure I slipped in a stranger’s pee.”

Victoria laughed.  “Yeah, leave the sex moving vehicles to the pros.  One time when me and Nathan were stuck in traffic on the 405…”

“I really don’t want to hear the rest of that story.  Times like this I really wish I had a bedroom to lock you out of."


	22. Chapter 22

“Chloe?” Rachel called as she walked into their garage, spotting Chloe’s legs underneath her old truck, which was up on cinderblocks.  She walked over to her and gently nudged her foot with the toe of her shoe.  “Hey, what are you doing?”

Chloe rolled herself out from underneath the truck and sat up on her roller board.  “Working,” she said simply.  “Do you need something?”

Rachel smiled at her, she had a few spots of grease on her face and the old shirt she wore with a bandana keeping her hair from her face. “You’re such a cute grease monkey.”

Chloe sighed, walking over to her work bench and grabbing a rag, wiping her hands.  “What do you want, Rachel?”

“I’ve hardly seen you today,” she said with a shrug.  She walked over to the truck and sat on the broken tailgate.  “Do you think you’ll ever get it running again?”

“I’m gonna try.”  She frowned at her.  “Really, what are you doing?  Last time you came down here was the day we moved in.”

“It’s your space. You used to only come here when I was driving you crazy,” she said with a laugh.

Chloe nodded, clearing her throat.  “Yeah, that hasn’t changed.”

“What?  Did I do something?”

“Did you really think Max wouldn’t tell me about your little talk?”  She grabbed Rachel’s arm, pulling her off of the truck bed and motioned towards the door for her to leave.  “I have work to do.”

“So you’re mad at me for talking to your girlfriend?  She was in my kitchen, Chloe.  Was I supposed to just ignore her?”

“You wanna talk to her?  Talk to her about her photography or your movies.  Hell, debate politics and religion for all I care,” she said as she walked over to the disassembled engine on the garage floor, stooping down next to it.  “What you did was try to break us up.”

“If your relationship can’t survive some would-be indiscretions, I think that would be a bigger problem.  At least now you have a clean slate.”

Chloe looked at Rachel, putting the wrench she held down with a loud clang.  “Stop acting like you did it for me.  God, Rachel, you really have no idea what you did to me, do you?”

“You and Max are fine.  You _made up_ for two hours.  I heard you.”

“Not me and Max.”  She sighed, standing up slowly.  “You and me.  I was in love with you, Rach.  Like, I was blind to all the shit you did until it was literally standing right in front of me, because I wanted us to be okay.  That’s how bad I wanted you, I ignored everything you did wrong.  I’m finally happy again and what do you do?  Try to sabotage me.”

“I’d say I’m sorry but I think we’re both sick of that.”

Chloe shook her head.  “Say it as much as you want, won’t make a difference.”

“Chloe, I’m sorry,” Rachel told her, walking over to her.  She moved one hand to the back of Chloe’s neck and leaning her forehead against hers.  “I’m sorry I hurt you.  I’m sorry I keep hurting you.”

Chloe kept her hands at her sides but closed her eyes, releasing a deep breath.

“What the hell?”

They both jumped when they heard a voice, seeing Max standing in the driveway near the opened garage door.  “Max,” Chloe started, shaking her head as she took a step towards her.  “This isn’t…”

“It’s over, huh?” Max asked, shaking her head once before turning quickly and walked back to her car, getting into it and speeding away.

Chloe ran after her, stopping at the edge of the driveway, before swearing and running quickly back into the house, returning a moment later with her car keys.

“Where are you going?” Rachel asked as she pulled open the door to the SUV.

“After Max,” she said, shaking her head.  “I love her, Rachel.”

She turned out of the driveway quickly, she sped to Max’s apartment and saw her car parked in her normal spot.  She parked her own car then ran to the door of the building, pressing the call button for her apartment.

There was silence for a moment before she heard Victoria’s voice on the intercom.  “Can I help you?”

“Let me in,” Chloe said, pushing the intercom button to talk.  “I need to see Max.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on, I need to talk to her.”

“She says ‘talk to your girlfriend’,” Victoria told her.  “Please leave.”

Chloe sighed as the intercom cut off and leaned against the brick wall near the door, waiting until a resident unlocked the door and she followed them inside, rushing up the stairs to Max’s fourth floor apartment, knocking on the door.

Victoria answered with a frown, keeping the door chained.  “I told you to leave.”

“And I told you I need to talk to Max,” she said catching her breath.  “Why doesn’t your building have a fucking elevator?”

Victoria looked at Max, who was sitting on the couch with her knees pulled up against her chest, before turning back to Chloe.  “There is one but it’s for residents and guests only.  You’re neither.”

“It wasn’t what it looked like,” Chloe told her, over Victoria’s shoulder.

Max’s eyes shifted to look at her.  “Vic,” said muttered, motioning for her roommate to come over to her and the door snapped shut.

Chloe blinked and knocked again, Victoria opened it again a moment later, this time without the chain.  Instead of letting Chloe in, she stepped into the hallway, crossing her arms.   “Give me two minutes,” Chloe told her.

“That’s not up to me, it’s up to Max and she’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to see you right now.”  Victoria shook her head.  “She’s my best friend, I barely know you.  Sorry, but whatever it is that happened, I’m on her side.”

Chloe sighed, rubbing the back of her neck.  “Can you just tell her…” she started but shook her head.  “Ask her to call me.”

Victoria nodded.  “You should leave.”  Chloe nodded her head slowly, turning to go back down the hallway before she heard Victoria speak again.  “I don’t know if I ever saw her happier than she’s been the last few days.  I was really rooting for you.”

Chloe turned to look at her.  “Tell her I’m not giving up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was hard to write but this is only the beginning of the roller coaster that will be Pricefield. This is one of the situations that are going to be dragged out.


	23. Chapter 23

Max sighed as she walked out of her apartment building and saw Chloe leaning against her car, holding two cups of coffee.  “You won’t answer my texts,” Chloe said as she stood up straighter, holding out one cup to Max.

“Did you ever think maybe I don’t want to talk to you?”  Max looked at the coffee but didn’t take it.  “I’d throw it at you but it’s hot and that might actually hurt you.”

“You could drink it instead,” she said with a shrug.  “Can we talk?”

“I have to go to work,” Max muttered, moving towards her car.  

“Give me five minutes.”

Max glanced at her watch and sighed.  “Three,” she told her, holding her hand out.  “Coffee.”

Chloe handed Max her coffee.  “Look, what you saw with me and Rachel, it wasn’t… it wasn’t what it looked like.  We were just talking.”

“What I saw definitely wasn’t talking,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Five seconds earlier we were.”

“What about?  How did talking lead to that?”

“She was apologizing, for all that shit she did.  For screwing with us.”

“And then you…” Max sighed heavily.  “She keeps screwing with us.  I want to trust you, Chloe.  Really, I do.  I don’t trust Rachel and I can’t trust you with her.”

“You can trust me, I promise.”

She shook her head.  “If I could, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.  I have to go.” 

“Wait,” Chloe said as Max opened her car door.

“Why?” she asked, sounding tired as she stood with the opened door of her car separating them.

Chloe opened her mouth and closed it again, shrugging her shoulders.  “Because I…” she started but stopped herself, shaking her head.

“What?”

“Never mind,” she said, shaking her head again.  “I shouldn’t say it while we’re fighting.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” Max told her.  “You said yourself the situation is weird.  I thought I could deal with it but maybe I just can’t.  I’m not gonna give you a her or me ultimatum.”

“Really?  Cause it sounds like that’s what you’re doing.”

“I’m not because I already know the answer.  It’s her.”  She looked down when Chloe shook her head.  “She’s your boss, she’s your best friend, she’s your roommate.  She’s everywhere and there’s no room for me.  I don’t fit in your life.”

 “Max, come on,” she said softly.

Max shook her head, not looking at Chloe.  “I don’t want to go months at a time without seeing you, having a relationship through texts.  I thought I could… but this isn’t gonna work.  Maybe if I didn’t have to constantly worry about you cheating on me,” she muttered then sighed. 

Chloe’s mouth fell open.  “I never cheated on you.”

“And I’m not giving you the chance. I really need to go to work.  Bye, Chloe”

Max got into her car and closed the door as Chloe shook her head, running one hand through her hair as she watched Max drive away. 

 

* * *

 

 

“How long are you going to sit around moping?” Rachel asked as Chloe as on the couch with her laptop on her lap.

Chloe’s eyes shifted to look at Rachel silently before moving back to her computer screen.

Rachel sighed.  “I’m sorry that your girlfriend broke up with you but giving me the silent treatment is a bit immature, don’t you think?”

“She dumped me because of you,” Chloe muttered, sounding tired.

“Oh, please,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes.

“She said it was because of you.”

“That’s ridiculous.  It’s not my fault she can’t deal with some innocent flirtation between friends.”

“Innocent?” Chloe repeated.  “Rach, I don’t know if you’re really that stupid or if you’re just a complete sociopath.”

“Chloe,” she said lightly, shaking her head with a smile.  “Look, I’m sorry you’re going through a hard time but…” she trailed off as she sat next to Chloe and saw a real estate website on her computer.  “What are you doing?”

“Looking for an apartment.”  She released a breath, turning her head to look at her.  “I’m moving out.”

“No, you aren’t.  You’ve never lived alone in your life.  You spent almost eight months barely speaking to me and sleeping on the couch at our old apartment.  If you didn’t move out then, you won’t now.”

“I also couldn’t afford rent on my own then, so I didn’t have a choice.  I’m done, Rachel.  I need my own life.”

“So after everything, your breaking point is me being mean to your girlfriend?”

Chloe looked at her, raising her eyebrows.  “You actually admit you were being a bitch?”

“I think she’s a bit high strung and overly sensitive, I could have possibly come off as being mean.”

Chloe let out a quick laugh.  “You were almost human for a second there.  Honestly, Rachel, what are you doing?  Why are you being like this?  Are… are you seriously jealous?”

“Jealous of a photographer’s assistant?”  She rolled her eyes.  “Please.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

“I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

Chloe sighed, rolling her eyes.  “You really need to stop saying that when you’re the one constantly hurting me.” She shook her head as stood up, her computer under her arm.

“Where are you going?”

“My room.  You’ll have it back soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I started tumblr page for this fic (kind of stole the idea from TheRainbowShakaBrah). Check it out @flashing-lights-official


	24. Chapter 24

Rachel crossed her arms as she walked into Chloe’s bedroom and saw a box on her bed, along with three more on the floor.  “You’re really going?” she asked as Chloe moved from her closet to the box open on the bed with an arm full of clothes.

Chloe nodded.  “You know what’s sad?  Everything I own fits into four boxes.”

“That’s not true.  You have a ton of stuff.”

“No, you have a ton of stuff that I use.  Name one thing in this house that’s mine.”

Rachel opened her mouth then closed it again, shaking her head as she walked into the room and sat on Chloe’s bed.  “Everything in the house is as much yours as it is mine.”

She chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Even my car isn’t mine.”

“Your car is yours, it’s in your name.”

“Good, I don’t have to carry my boxes to Inglewood,” she muttered.

Rachel’s eyes widened.  “Inglewood?  You’re moving to Inglewood?  Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I had to go where I knew I’d be able to afford,” Chloe told her with a sigh.  “At least until I find a good job and get back on my feet.”

“You have a job,” Rachel said.  “Unless you’re quitting on me too.”

“Thinking about it.”

“Chloe,” Rachel sighed, reaching for her hand.  Chloe pulled her hand away and crossed her arms.  “Okay, Chloe, you can’t quit.  You need to move out, I understand, but you can’t quit.”

“I’ll find a way to pay off the lawsuit, okay?”

“I could care less about that stupid lawsuit.   I know you hate me right now, you don’t want to be anywhere near me and I get it, I do.  If you’re moving, I want you to at least move somewhere safe.”

“Like you care,” Chloe muttered.

“Of course I care.  I know, you’re tough but there’s no reason for you to move into a dangerous neighborhood.”

She rolled her eyes.  “I can’t really afford to stay in Santa Monica.”

“You can if you keep working for me.  I’ll even give you a raise.”

Chloe frowned, looking at Rachel.  “Why?”

“Peace of mind that my best friend doesn’t need to sleep with a gun under her pillow.  You didn’t close on that Inglewood place yet, did you?”

Chloe shook her head, sitting down next to Rachel.  “I don’t want a raise but I need you to understand my life is my life.  Our relationship from here out is professional, my personal life is none of your business and you don’t get to interfere.”

“Chloe, I’m sorry,” she started but Chloe shook her head.

“Don’t.  I don’t care.  Sorry doesn’t fix it.  You’re not gonna like this, but I think you need to go to therapy.”

Rachel blinked.  “What, like a shrink?”

“My job is to help you, right?   I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you need way more help than I can give you.  You’re not the same person you were when we moved out here.  I don’t know what happened to you.  Maybe you were always a bitch and I was just blind.”  She shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

“Will it actually change anything?”

Chloe shrugged again.  “Can’t hurt.  You go or I quit.”

“Fine but you’re not moving out of Santa Monica.”

“This isn’t conditional.”

Rachel sighed, looking down at her lap.  “Are you really that desperate to get away from me that you won’t slow down and keep looking to see if something opens up?  You’ll be closer to Max.”

“Yeah, living closer to her will solve everything.  Our problems are completely geographical.”

“Well, it can’t hurt.  When you guys do get back together, I don’t think she’ll want to live in a dangerous neighborhood, do you?”

“I haven’t heard from her for two weeks,” Chloe said with a sigh.  “I’m pretty sure it’s over.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Okay, this is getting pathetic,” Victoria said as she walked over to Max’s bed.  “How long are you going to keep telling Jefferson you have the flu?  I’m pretty sure if you don’t shake it after a few days, you’re supposed to go to the hospital.”

“I don’t really have the flu,” Max muttered against her pillow.

Victoria gasped.  “Really?” she said sarcastically.  She sighed softly, lifting one knee onto the bed.  “Seriously, you need to get out of bed.  At least shower, it’s starting to smell like I have a dead body in here and if you don’t move soon, I’m actually gonna call the coroner.”

“When you broke up with your boyfriend in college, I got your homework when you didn’t go to class and I let you eat nothing but Chunky Monkey ice cream for a month and a half.  I’m allowed to wallow.”

“Okay, I was with him for three years, you were hardly with Chloe for a month.  Yes, you’re allowed to wallow but you can’t mourn a relationship for longer than you were in it.”

“I just can’t believe she hasn’t even texted.  I haven’t seen her getting coffee or…”

“She’s giving you space.  She’s doing what you asked.”

Max glared at her.  “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours but you can’t be mad at her for doing what you asked, you know?  Maybe she’s waiting for you to make the first move.”

“Or maybe she’s too preoccupied having sex with Rachel Amber to think about me.”

“Well, you know what they say.  Best way to get over someone…”

“Do not finish that sentence.”

“Is to get under someone else.”  Victoria smiled. “And that’s what you need to do.  We should go out, get drunk, have meaningless sex with strangers then come back here and nurse a wicked hangover.  After you stop feeling like an elephant sat on your head, you'll feel better.”

“You have a boyfriend, remember?”

“Do you see a ring?” she asked, holding up her hand.  “No.  Besides, he’ll forgive me, this is for you.”

“How is you having sex with someone else for me?”

Victoria rolled her eyes.  “You’ll be having sex too.  With someone else, hopefully on the other side of the city.”

“I’m really not into random hookups, you know that.”

“Oh, I know.  I’m surprised you did it with Chloe after only a few days.  Why did you anyway?”

Max shrugged her shoulder, sitting up slightly.  “Because it wasn’t only a few days for me.  The whole time she was in Toronto… it’s been months.  I was in love with her, Vic.”

Victoria sighed softly, going to the other side of the apartment to pick up her purse.

“Where are you going?”

“To get a couple gallons of Chunky Monkey and bunch of wine,” she told her.  “When I come back, we can stay in bed and watch stupid movies all night while you drown your sorrows, alright?  You take a shower while I’m gone, you might even feel better when you’re not completely gross.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to write pricefield when they're at a crossroad...


	25. Chapter 25

“You got a package,” Victoria told Max as she walked into the apartment, holding a large box along with their mail.  She dropped the box on the couch next to Max then sorted through the rest of the mail, handing Max hers.

Max frowned as she looked at the non-descript cardboard box.  “No return address.”

“You’re not expecting anything?” Victoria asked, Max shook her head.  “Throw it out.  Toss it off the balcony.”

Max shook her head again, letting out a quick sigh.  “It’s Chloe’s hand writing.”

“Throw it off the balcony,” Victoria told her. 

Max didn’t take her eyes off the box, finally reaching for the tape to tear it off.  “Holy shit,” she muttered when she looked at the contents.

“Tell me she sent you Rachel Amber’s severed head.”

Max shook her head, pulling out a brand new DSLR camera, handing it to Victoria. 

“Nikon D850?” Victoria read, turning the box over in her hand.  “What’s that?”

“About thirty-five hundred dollars,” Max said, looking at the three lenses also in the box, a telephoto, a wide angle zoom, and a fisheye lens.  “At least seven thousand dollars worth of lenses.  And a four hundred dollar tripod,” Max said, handing the tripod to Victoria.

“Don’t four hundred dollar tripods do the same thing as fifty dollar tripods?”

“I wouldn’t know.  I’ve never had a four hundred dollar tripod.”

“Maybe it can fly,” Victoria said with a smile.

“You are not throwing it off the balcony,” she told her, grabbing the tripod back. “I have to give it all back.”

“But don’t you need this stuff?  Like to actually have a future in photography, unless you want to work for Jefferson for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah, eventually.  I need to get it myself though.”

Victoria scoffed.  “You’re gonna buy ten grand worth of photography equipment by yourself?  How about we work on getting a bigger place before you start counting your pennies?  Look, how about you call Chloe and figure out where all this came from?”

Max sighed softly and pulled her phone from her back pocket, frowning when she saw a new notification on her screen.

Chloe: _Merry Christmas or whatever._

Max shook her head as she typed a response back.

Max: _Christmas isn’t for five days._  
Chloe: _You got the present I sent today, didn’t you?_  
Max _: We need to talk about this.  
_ Chloe _: I’m outside._

Max repacked the equipment into the box and walked out of the building, sighing when she saw Chloe leaning against her car.

“What the hell is all this?” Max demanded.

“Your Christmas present,” Chloe said with a quick shrug.

“This isn’t a Christmas present.  This is half of a car.”

“If you think that’s a car, you don’t know what a car looks like.”

“Chloe,” she sighed, shaking her head.  “It’s too much.”

Chloe shrugged her shoulders.  “Rachel gave me a Christmas bonus.  I figured what better way to spend it than investing in Maximum Photography? Plus, I didn’t how else to talk to you. It’s been a while.”

“That’s one hell of a bonus.”  She raised her eyebrows.  “Maximum Photography?” Max repeated with a laugh then she nodded. “Yeah, it has been.”

“No?” Chloe smiled.  “We’ll work on the name.  Keep the stuff, buy me like three thousand cups of coffee, we’ll be even.”

Max shook her head again, sitting the box down between them.  “I have a camera, Chloe.”

“Yeah, I know you love your Polaroid but you gotta use what the pros use, right?  I did some research, asked some photographers, this is the best you can get.  You know, that’s the same camera Annie Leibovitz uses.”

Max nodded.  “I’ve heard.”

“You’ll keep it right?  I want you to keep it.”

“I’ll keep it I just… I don’t know what this means.  About us.”

Chloe shrugged one shoulder.  “Well like I said, an investment in your future business makes us partners, even if I’m a silent one.  And, well, we can be whatever you want outside of that.”

“How about friends first?” Max suggested.  “We can see where it goes from there?”

“Friends,” Chloe agreed.  She picked up the box and handed it to Max.  “For now, at least.”

Max smiled and nodded.  “So who’s getting the coffee tomorrow?”

“Well, I owed you three months, so ninety days, three bucks a cup,” she mumbled, doing the math in her head.  “I’m even, you’re down to around twenty-seven hundred cups.”

Max rolled her eyes.  “Okay, I’ll get the coffee for the seven years.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Chloe, look at this one,” Rachel said, looking at homes in Santa Monica on her computer set up on a desk in at the edge of the living room.  “Three bedrooms.”

“I don’t need three bedrooms,” she said, not moving off the couch.

“Just look at it.  It matches your hair.”

Chloe rolled her eyes, moving her laptop off of her lap then stood to walk over to Rachel.  “The house being blue really isn’t a huge selling point for me.”  She shook her head, looking at the house on the screen then turned to go back to the couch.  “No houses. I’m looking for a condo or an apartment.”

“This has a private hot tub.”

Chloe turned back, raising her eyebrows.  “Hot tub?”

Rachel laughed. “You’re such an easy sell.  I set a showing for tomorrow morning.  I’m sure you’ll find a use for the other rooms.”

Chloe crossed her arms, shrugging one shoulder.  “Would be nice for Mom and David to have a place to stay if they ever visit.”

Rachel turned in her chair to look at Chloe, her eyebrows raised.  “Your Mom and David?  You haven’t talked to them in years.”

“I never got a chance to tell you cause you were too busy being a bitch, we went to Arcadia over Thanksgiving weekend.  I gave my mom my number but she never called.” She shrugged.  “If they ever do wanna visit, it’d be nice if they could stay with me.”

Rachel nodded, turning back to her computer.  “Did you see my parents?”

“Did I go visit your parents, who hate me, with Max?  No.  Maybe you should give them a call though.”

“I’d rather shove bamboo shoots under my fingernails.”

Chloe blinked then shoot her head.  “Good, give Dr. Brink something to work with.”

“Dr. Brink?”

“Your therapist, remember?”

Rachel’s mouth fell open.  “You were serious about that?”

Chloe crossed her arms.  “Yes, Rachel, I’m serious about you going to therapy.”

“No, I know you were serious about therapy but Dr. Brink?  Really?”

“Rachel, I swear to god, if you go there and make fun of her name for an hour…”

“I won’t,” Rachel told her, rolling her eyes.  “Don’t worry, I’ll get all my daddy issues worked out.”

“And your mommy issues, and your other mommy issues,” Chloe muttered with a smirk.

“Is this my Christmas gift from you?  Because you really suck at gift giving.”

Chloe smiled.  “You’re paying for it, it’s your gift for yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was boring, it's basically just to set some things up for the next couple chapters.
> 
> To see the house Chloe and Rachel talked about, check out a picture of it here: https://flashing-lights-official.tumblr.com/post/169980381191/i-was-playing-around-on-zillow-looking-for-chloes  
> There’s also a few spoilers about things to come if you click around on the blog.


	26. Chapter 26

Max frowned as she walked out of her apartment building, seeing a black motorcycle in the spot where Chloe normally parked to pick her up, the rider straddling the bike, wearing a hoodie and a blue and black helmet.  Max frowned, looking down at her phone.  It was Christmas Eve, she didn’t have work, but Chloe texted her that she had a surprise and to come outside

The rider turned their head to look at Max, keeping the face shield on the helmet closed.  “Looking for a ride, cutie?” a familiar voice asked, muffled by the helmet.

Max blinked.  “Chloe?”

Chloe laughed, taking the helmet off and running a hand through her hair.  “What do you think?”

“You bought a motorcycle?”

She nodded, smiling.  “I always wanted one.”

Max took a hesitant step towards Chloe and the bike.  “So why didn’t you have one before?”

“Rachel thinks they’re stupid and dangerous and said I’d crash and break my neck,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes.

Max shook her head, shrugging her shoulder.  “And, what, she changed her mind?”

“I stopped caring about what she says.”  Chloe turned, unhooking a red and white helmet from the back of the bike then holding it out to Max.  “Hop on.”

Max took two steps back.  “I don’t think so.  Do you even know how to ride that thing?”

Chloe blinked at her.  “I drove it here, didn’t I?  Come on, I wanna show you something.”

“How about we take my car?”

“Max,” Chloe interrupted, smiling despite the slightly annoyed tone of her voice.  “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Max let out a breath and took the helmet from Chloe, pulling it over her head then lifting the face shield so she could talk.  “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” Chloe told her, putting her own helmet on.  “Get on, hold tight.”

“So this is why you bought the bike?” Max asked as she straddled the bike behind Chloe, putting her hands against her hips.

 Max saw Chloe smile behind her dark face shield.  “It doesn’t hurt.  Best behavior, I promise.”  She reached behind her to close Max’s face shield before she started the bike.

Max held tight onto Chloe’s waist, feeling like they were both about to fly off the bike when she sped down sideroads until Chloe slowed down as she turned onto a road lined with homes.  Max frowned, looking around until Chloe parked in the driveway of a blue house.

“Where are we?” Max asked, pulling the helmet off her head.

“My house.  I’m moving out of Rachel’s.”

Max’s mouth fell open.  “You what?”

Chloe nodded before pulling her own helmet off.  “You were right, I need a life without her.  She’s my boss, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

She nodded again.  “Look, it might not change anything at this point but what you saw that day, with me and her it wasn’t… we weren’t doing anything.”

Max didn’t say anything, her hands against Chloe’s hips again.  “So you bought the bike to compensate for living in the suburbs?”

“I do not live in the suburbs.”

“We’re surrounded by houses.  Sorry, but this is the suburbs.”

Chloe shook her head as she got off the motorcycle.  “Let’s go inside, I wanna show you something.”

Max nodded, following Chloe to the front door.  “It matches your hair.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” She unlocked the door and pushed it open, allowing Max to walk into the house first.

Max raised her eyebrows as she looked around the empty home.  “Well, I love what you’ve done with the place.”

“I’m staying at Rachel’s until I get my furniture and crap picked out.”

Max nodded, wondering what exactly Chloe had been so anxious to show her.  “The floors are really nice.”

Chloe smiled, shaking her head as she pointed to the wall opposite where they were standing, there was a small frame in the center on the wall.  Max frowned, walking across the room until she saw the tiny Polaroid picture in a black frame, the picture Max had taken when she and Chloe first met of the ocean view from Rachel’s balcony.

She turned to look back at Chloe.  “I didn’t know you had this picture.”

“You must’ve dropped it when you ran away that day,” Chloe said with a smirk as Max rolled her eyes at the memory.

“So you kept it, framed it, and hung it?”

Chloe shrugged her shoulder as she walked over to Max.  “It’s a Caulfield original. Gonna be worth millions one day.”

“Millions, huh?”

“At least like, ten bucks.”  She smiled.  “I’ve had it for almost six months.  I’m kinda surprised you didn’t see it in my room.”

“When I was in your room I wasn’t exactly paying attention to your choices of artwork.”

“Well, I am a work of art so…”

Max looked at her and rolled her eyes.  “And so humble.”

“You never realized it was missing?”

Max shrugged one shoulder.  “I figured I dropped it in the Uber or lost it in your house.  Either way I thought I was never gonna see it again.”  She cleared her throat.  “Or you.”

“Are you happy you did?”

Max looked back at the picture.  “I mean, it’s a nice picture.  Could be lit better.”

Chloe laughed, her arm brushing against Max’s as she crossed her arms.  Max looked up at her, blinking as Chloe turned her head to look at her.

Max wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or if Chloe really did lean towards her, but she stubbled backwards a step.  “I uh… I have your Christmas present,” she mumbled.

“You know you didn’t have to get me anything, right?” she said as Max pulled a box out of her messenger bag.

“It’s… it’s not much.  It’s definitely not worth ten thousand bucks but…” She shrugged.  “I saw it and I thought of you and… you know what, it’s stupid.  Don’t open it,” she told her as she started to tear the wrapping paper.

She laughed.  “You saw something stupid and your thought was ‘wow, Chloe should have that’?”

“I thought it was funny,” Max said, shrugging again.  “By the time I realized it might be stupid, I already had it.”

“Okay, now I have to know what it is.”  She finished unwrapping it, throwing the paper onto the floor.  She pulled a black coffee mug out of the box and looked at Max.  “You have a weird sense of humor.”

Max shook her head.  “Turn it over.”

Chloe did, seeing the white silhouette of a hand holding up the middle finger on the bottom of the mug, and laughed.  “Okay, that’s kinda perfect. And now it’s my first piece of dishware.”

Max followed as Chloe walked into the kitchen, putting the mug on the counter, then laying it down so the bottom of the mug faced the entrance of the room.  “Nice,” Max nodded.  “Make your guests feel welcome."

Chloe shrugged.  “Well, for the most part, they aren’t.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why Chloe has a motorcycle, she wanted one. Like Max said, she lives in the suburbs now and drives an SUV so she's losing all her street cred.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while. I was working on my entry for pricefield-eternal's contest on tumblr so this took a back seat for a couple weeks. This chapter was really hard to write for some reason, I'm still not completely happy with how it turned out. I don't know.

_Chloe_ :  What are you doing for New Years?  
_Max_ : Traditional Chinese takeout with Vic and Nathan.  
_Max_ : Why? What’s up?  
_Chloe_ : Do you want to go to a party?  Rachel always has this big thing at the house, if you wanna come.  
_Chloe_ : Victoria and her boyfriend can come too.  
_Max_ : I can think of so many things I want to do before I party with Rachel.  
_Max_ : Two of them involve a drill and my eyeball.  
_Chloe_ : Two drill and eyeball scenarios? Really?  
_Chloe_ : Come on, it’ll be fun.  
_Max_ : Okay.  Only because if Victoria finds out she had a chance to party it up with a house full of celebrities and I ruined it for her, she’ll never forgive me.  
_Chloe_ : Remind me to thank Victoria for forcing you to have a good time.

 

* * *

 

Nathan’s mouth fell open as he walked through the open door of Rachel’s house behind Max and Victoria.  “Holy shit, I think those are Victoria’s Secret Angels,” he mumbled, looking at a group of models.

Victoria slid her arm through the crook of Nathan’s elbow.  “Sweetie, you already know Victoria’s secrets, remember?” she whispered, kissing his cheek quickly.

“Gross,” Max mumbled, rolling her eyes.

“Seriously, that’s Taylor Hill and Elsa Hosk,” he said.

“Why do you know their names?”

He blinked at Max.  “Why don’t you?”  He cleared his throat.  “I’m a one woman man though,” he said, putting his arm around Victoria.

Victoria rolled her eyes.  “Go,” she told him.

He smiled widely.  “I love you,” he said quickly before kissing her cheek before running over to the models.

Max shook her head. “I can’t believe you actually give him permission to cheat.”

“Let him do what he wants, long as I’m the one who goes home with,” Victoria told her.  “Besides, I want to see how long it takes before he gets slapped.”

“Ten bucks on ten minutes.”

“Give it five,” Chloe said, walking up next to Max with a bottle of beer in her hand.   “Those girls will eat him alive.”

Victoria arched her eyebrow.  “He might actually enjoy that.”  She looked at Chloe, who was looking at Max.  “I should go save him.  You two talk.”

She looked pointedly at Max, who shook her head once at her before she walked over to Nathan, slinging her arm over his shoulder as she kissed his cheek.  Max laughed when a model spoke to her before throwing her drink at Nate.

“Easiest ten bucks I ever made,” Chloe said, taking a sip of her beer.  “I didn’t think you’d make it.  It’s almost midnight.”

“Sorry, I got held up at Drake’s party.  He’s very needy.”

Chloe smiled, shaking her head.  “Typical Jimmy,” she mumbled.  “You didn’t miss much.  Some idiot tried to jump off the balcony into the pool and well… it didn’t go well.”  She cleared her throat before taking another drink.  “Can I get you something?” she asked, holding up the bottle

“Sorry I missed it,” Max muttered.  She cleared her throat, glancing around then shook her head.  “I’m driving the lovebirds back home.”

“Fun,” Chloe muttered.  “Do you wanna go for a walk?” she asked after a moment of silence between them.

“You don’t need to stay?”

Chloe shrugged, finishing off her beer before she put the empty bottle on a nearby table.  “I don’t think anyone’ll miss me,” she said, glancing around the house full of celebrities.

Max nodded and followed Chloe out of the house, looking at her as the headed towards the beach.  “Do you really want to give up being in walking distance to the ocean?”

“Surprisingly, the ocean isn’t that big of pull for me.   I mean, it was fun for a while and then the novelty of waking up to an overcrowded tourist trap faded.   Now it’s just one annoying day after the other of waking up to screaming kids, drunks, and cleaning seagull shit off the balcony.”

“Lifestyle of the rich and famous,” Max said with a grin.

“Except I’m not rich or famous.”

“You just bought a motorcycle and a house in the same month, not to mention all that photography equipment you gave me.  Sorry to break it to you, but you’re rich.”

Chloe frowned.  “Rachel’s rich.  I’m benefiting from her being America’s Sweetheart, but I know that’s not gonna last forever.”

“So what’s the backup plan?”

“Write a tell all,” Chloe said with a laugh then she sighed and shrugged, looking at her watch.  “One minute.”

“Do you wanna watch the fireworks?”

Chloe frowned, turning her head to look at Max.  “There’s fireworks?”

“You live ten minutes from the pier, how have you never seen the fireworks?”

“Easy, I’m always either too drunk or too busy making out with someone to watch them.”

Max shook her head, deciding not to ask about Chloe’s make out partners, she sat down in the sand.  “Watch the fireworks,” she said, taking Chloe’s hand to pull her down next to her.

Chloe kept Max’s hand in hers as she fell back onto the cool sand, her leg brushing against Max’s.   She laughed when the twenty second countdown began, then turned her head to look at Max, who was enthusiastically counting backwards with the rest of the beach goers.

Max turned her head to look at Chloe and nudged her with her arm.  Chloe shook her head, rolling her eyes as she began counting from ten.

Max smiled as the fireworks started at the end of the countdown, Chloe turned to look at her, her face illuminated by the bright colors from the show.  “Happy New Year,” Chloe said, leaning close to Max’s ear so she could hear her over the partying going on around them.

“Happy New Year.”  Max turned to look at Chloe, blinking when she found her face so close to hers.  She leaned in to give her a quick, chaste kiss.  “Tradition,” she mumbled with a shrug before Chloe put her hand against the back of Max’s neck, pulling her back to her and kissing her deeply.

Max didn’t fight her and Chloe pushed her back so they were laying in the sand, Chloe half on top of her.  They broke apart when they heard screaming from down the beach as a firework went off.  Chloe lifted her head to look first, keeping Max pinned to the ground.

“Chloe, this sand is freezing,” Max muttered against her lips.

Chloe laughed, her head falling onto Max’s shoulder.  She pushed herself up, holding Max’s hand as she stood up slowly.  They walked back to Rachel’s house, Max shook her head when she heard the thumping music from several feet away from the property.

“Rachel’s got the spare rooms and the basement filled with blow up mattresses,” Chloe mentioned trying to sound casual.  “You know, for people who need to spend the night.”

“How responsible of her to keep drunk celebrities off the streets.”

“I’m just saying, if you wanted to crash, there’s probably a couple spares for Nate and Vic.”

Max raised her eyebrows, looking up at Chloe.  “What about me?”

“I still have a bed in my old room.”

Max smiled, shaking her head once.  She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss Chloe quickly before they walked into the house.  “I’ll run it by Victoria.  I don’t think she’ll have a problem sleeping twenty feet away from Miles Teller,” she whispered quickly, smiling before she left Chloe to find Victoria.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peaks around corner* Sooooo it's been a while. I was going through a really hard time personally, a lot of stuff all came down on me at once. I'm starting to do better so hopefully I'll be back into the swing of things soon.  
> This chapter picks up right where the last one left off. It is probably not worth the wait but it's here and the story's finally moving forward.  
> I'm sorry.

Max frowned as she walked into Chloe’s bedroom in Rachel’s house, there were a few moving boxes on the floor that were taped up, with one that looked like it had been taped then torn open again.  There were a couple of crumpled shirts on top of the box and a pair of jeans on the floor next to it.

She didn’t have time to think about the boxes or that her bed was still made with the same cover Max remembered, because Chloe came up behind her, pushing her hair out of the way to kiss her neck.   

Chloe turned Max around to kiss her, then Max’s hoodie and Chloe’s flannel were being removed and Chloe was laying her down on the bed.  Then in a blur of movements, Chloe’s shirt was off and Max’s was pushed up to the edge of her bra.

“Chloe,” she tried, mumbling against her lips.  Chloe moaned her name back but Max shook her head, pushing against Chloe’s shoulder and hip.  “No, Chloe, stop.  Stop.”

Chloe stopped kissing her, her hands moving to the bed as she pushed herself up, hair falling into her face.  “What’s wrong?”

“We really need to talk.”  She moved her fingers through Chloe’s hair, tucking it back behind her ears.

“We have plenty of time to talk later,” Chloe told her, kissing her again but Max shook her head.

“I’m serious.”

Chloe nodded, rolling off of Max to lay on the bed next to her.  “I kinda thought we were on the same page here.”

“We were,” Max said quickly, then shook her head.  “We are.  I’m just… I thought you moved out.”

Chloe frowned at her.  “I did.  I mean, I am.””

“It’s taking you a while.  When you took me there you had the keys and everything.”

Chloe groaned.  “It’s a whole house, Max.  I have to decorate a whole house.  I have to paint and get furniture and I’m redoing the kitchen, which takes a while and I don’t really want to live in a construction zone.”

Max shifted, propping herself onto her elbow as she turned onto her side.  “So you’re getting this fancy kitchen for all the cooking you do?” she teased.

“I cook,” Chloe told her with a smirk.  “Not often but I cook.  Either way, I can’t live in a house with white cabinets.”

“Well, I’d never expect you to.”  She leaned towards Chloe, stopping just before kissing her.  “Do you think maybe we moved too fast the first time?”

Chloe frowned, turning on her side to look at Max.  “Do you?”

“It didn’t work for a reason, right?”

Chloe nodded slowly.  “Yeah, that reason is Rachel.  I’m sorry for all the shit I let her do.  I know, she’s a lot to deal with.  I’m just used to her, I guess.” She sighed softly, moving her hand through her hair.  “Look, if this… right now, was just because of the fireworks and the beach and you know… everything, it’s cool.  You can leave or I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Chloe, we’ve slept in the same bed before, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, the difference is we made out before we went to sleep and a few times we were naked.”

“Well, we did make out,” Max whispered with a smile.  “I’ll try to not let Rachel get to me, okay?”

“Wait, what?”

Max propped herself onto her elbow.  “Was just the beach and the fireworks for you?”

Chloe shook her head. “The beach doesn’t have that strong of effect on me.”

“Too bad,” Max teased, laying down on her back again.

“Was it for you?”

Max smiled, turning her head to look at Chloe again.  “What do you think?”

“I think the dude blowing his hand off twenty feet away from us might have changed your mind about the beach being romantic.”

Max frowned.  “We really should have stayed and made sure he was okay.”

Chloe shrugged her shoulders.  “Stupid and drunk is a dangerous combination.  There’s nothing we could have done without a time machine.  Nothing you can do to stop a drunk idiot from being a drunk idiot.”

“Are we too stupid and drunk to be having this conversation?” Max wondered, biting her bottom lip.  “I mean, I didn’t have anything to drink but if you’re…”

“Are you calling me a drunk idiot?” Chloe asked with a smirk.  “I want to remind you I have all my fingers.”

“I just don’t want you to wake up in the morning and have to have this conversation all over again because…” she trailed off with a sigh.  “I can’t keep going back and forth with you, Chloe.”

“I’m not that drunk,” she told her.

“How many beers did you have?”

Chloe frowned.  “Um… five?” She looked at Max, who smiled at her unsure answer.  “Fair enough, we can wait until morning to talk but hungover me is a lot harder to talk to than drunk me.  For the record, drunk or sober, I’m still crazy about you.”

Max sighed.  “Are you sure that’s not the beers talking?”

“Well, I didn’t buy you a three thousand dollar camera because I hate you.”

“Right.”

“I know I can be an asshole sometimes but just now, what was happening here...”  She glanced at the discarded shirts on the floor.  “I wouldn’t do that to you, Max.”

She nodded.  “I know.”

They fell silent for a moment, Chloe looking up at the ceiling while Max, still turned on her side, looked down as she picked at a spot on the sheets.  “So where does that leave us?” Chloe finally whispered.

“Let’s just take it slow, okay?”

Chloe nodded.  “I can do that.”

“Can you?” Max asked with a smirk.

“Well, I’m not the one who kept sneaking into the others’ room in the middle of the night while we were at your parents’ house.”

Max laughed, turning to bury her face against the pillow she laid against.  “That was once.”

“Because you wouldn’t let me go to my room the other nights.”

“Fair.”

“And we waited four months.  I think that’s pretty slow.”

“True.”

“We didn’t really have a choice though.”

“Also true.”  Max laughed, turning to look at Chloe again.  “So which of us has to leave the country this time?”

“Is that the only way you can keep your hands off of me?  Not surprised.”


End file.
